A Girl From His Past
by Dream HUGE
Summary: Hank is heart broken after Raven left him. His best friend is gone, but a new student comes to the school and Hank will soon find out that his past is coming back to haunt him. Beast/OC Complete, but being revised!
1. Prologue Part 1

**Prologue pt 1**

**So it's Beast and as the title states, a girl from his past. Serena is quiet but strong and you will learn can have a fiery temper, but thats later lets start right now. **

**This is before and after the X men first class and I took a little from the comic page from wiki about Beast on here with his dad and the nuclear plant, but that's about it.**

**All rights go to X Men and stuff, save for some of my plot and like 2 characters...**

**This is my first X Men fanfic and I hope you enjoy. **

I looked out the back door to our small back yard, the grass had already started to die as the winter coldness crept in, but I didn't care. Making sure that no one could see into the yard, I took my shoes off and ran to the only tree in the far back of the yard. It was an old oak that had been there ever since my mother had bought our little shack of a house.

My father had died when I was younger from an explosion in the nuclear power plant that he worked at; my mother still visited his grave every Friday, although I don't know if she was really saddened by it, she didn't act like she missed my father, in fact half the time she seemed to hate the mere memory of him.

I was slightly unsocial, though it really had nothing to do with my father's death. Most kids at school tended to stay away from me, and I preferred it, most of them were immature and unworthy of my friendship in my opinion. They all walked around like useless children, while I was stuck at that school because my mother didn't want me leaving her to go off to some gifted school. I could be almost any where I wanted to be, yet I was stuck here in some no where town.

I mean I was super smart, like genius level smart, and I don't mean to brag, it was just the truth, yet here I was stuck in a hick town all because my mother didn't want to loose the only person that makes sure the house and bills are in order.

The feeling of climbing the tree always brought me much joy, the feeling of my ugly feet free from my shows, my feet able to grip onto the branches of the tree like I was an ape, the harsh bark cracking under my feet and hands. No one had caught my eye at my school, except for one girl, she was pretty but in a natural way, she had black curly hair that she always wore down. Her name was Serena, she really had no friends and she walked the school like she wasn't really there, but she would go into her backyard and sing and to me she sounded like angels.

Her parents never came outside, and no one really knew what they looked like, my mother was slightly scared of that house, but it intrigued me. The thought of someone never coming out of their house was slightly scary but it also meant there was a reason why. I loved hearing a story; I had already gone through all the books in our small town library, so now I could only hear a story by word of mouth or the newspaper that my mother couldn't afford to buy.

Every time I went up on my tree, I always hoped that she would be down in the yard next to me singing, I had watched and listened to her more then once, but it never bored me when she sang the same song over and over again. But this time when I went up and looked down to her yard, I say nothing but their two large oak trees, after a moment, a small thing of light was coming from the tree. Unnaturally so.

Jumping from the perch in my tree, I leaped over the fence separating the two yards, and lightly landed in Serena's yard and looked up into the tree. There appeared to be a figure in the tree, but the figure was being lightened up by something, I couldn't see what was really happening. It looked like he or she had a light that shown all around them and almost through them. It was an odd sight to say the least.

"Hello?" I half whispered up at the illuminated figure. "Is someone there?" I said it a bit louder.

A little scream of surprise came from the figure before it tried to stand up to only bang its head on a branch and fall from the tree. Using my quick reflexes, I ran to the base of the tree and caught the figure before it almost smashed into the ground.

I felt my back and butt slam into the ground right before the weight of the person hit my chest and stomach. I looked up and the dark blue sky for a little trying to get air back in my lungs. The figure leaped off of me and crouched down to examine me. It looked like a girl, but I couldn't tell, my glasses seemed to have fallen off I thought absently as I looked at the girl above me.

"I'm so sorry, please forgive me," the girl kept repeating in a strained voice as her hands fluttered over my face, unsure of what to do. Interrupting her I said, "glasses" and the girl's dark hair flung around her face as she looked around the ground for my glasses.

She pressed something to my face and I could finally see her. Serena had a bright white strips going across her face in a complex design that seemed to be glowing like a light bulb. I looked down at her hands and say what looked like a many tipped star glowing on her hands and the white light didn't stop there, it seemed to spiral up her arm. The same complex star was on the center of her forehead and curved strips went down between her hairline and eyes on both sides of her face.

The parts of the girl's body glowed in strips and her hair had highlights glowing the same way, but what scared me the most was the way that her eyes were completely white and glowing with the same light as the other strips on her body.

Looking up into her face, I realized that I couldn't tell at all what she was thinking, her brown eye, which usually portrayed any emotion she had were gone and the white ones before me weren't showing a speck of emotion. Her face turned and Serena looking at my bare feet, the big toe looking like a thumb, like an app's foot, covered in light brown hair.

"Serena?" I whispered trying to draw her attention away from my mutation. "Serena what's wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing," She said coldly, finally dragging her attention back to my face. Though her voice was cold and stiff, I could smell, with my animal senses, the fear coming off her body. Her hands were clasped together and she was ringing her hands out nervously. Her body was stiff and it looked like she was ready to run on a moments notice.

Sitting up quickly using my mutation to add speed to it, I looked over at Serena. With my movement, she had leapt up and backed into the tree she had just fallen from. Fear was rolling off her body in huge waves and I could almost feel the tension in her body.

"Serena please sit down, I just want to talk. I'm not going to tell anyone, if you don't tell anyone about me." Seeing the truth and logic in my words, Serena slowly walked over to me and sat down. The glow on her body had started to fade and was almost completely gone. "Now tell me, Serena, what can you do? I know you're different, that much I've seen, I believe you have a mutation like me, I've done years of research, well as many as I can, since I am only ten. So tell me, tell me everything, please. I've never met anyone else with another mutation."

She looked around nervously, but I waited, she knew as well as I that no one ever came outside in cold weather like this and that the streets were empty around here so no one to over hear us, or hear her if she screamed, she still seemed to fear me slightly. "I- I mean- It all started a few years ago. I was at the corner store on James Rowe," She paused waiting for me to understand, James Rowe was in some of the worst parts of town. There had been many articles in the papers at school about different mugging and beating.

"Go on," I said with a nod.

"There were these two men outside the store; I had just bought some bread from the store you see? So these two men came up to me, one of them wearing black and the other wearing jeans and a gray hoodie. I just wanted to get home, and-and one of them demanded for my money, but I didn't have any on me after buying the bread. The men didn't believe me, so one of them dr-dr-drew a knife. He- he," Serena chocked on her word and I could see the pain in her now brown eyes, the pain of remembering. Fear again came off her body in waves and she visible started to tremble.

"You don't have to tell me," I said quietly looking at Serena, I wanted to know what happened so badly, but I could see how much it was hurting her to tell me.

Serena looked away and took a deep breath and looked back at me with a look of steal determination on her face.

"No, I'll tell you," She said softly but firmly looking at the sky, "Someone needs to know, my parents-," then she faulted and a look of helplessness came across her face before the determination returned, "My parents, they don't understand, so someone needs to know. So one of the two guys drew a knife, there was no one around to see what was happening, it was too late at night. I didn't get a good look at the knife; all I saw was a flash of shinning silver before a white light that seemed to crackle with electricity hit them. I didn't understand what had happened, but I looked around and found both the men crumbled against a wall ten feet away. At first I thought an angel had saved me, I thought that God had looked down on me with pity, but I was wrong. I didn't know that I was glowing until halfway home, I had run from the store to the start of our street but I looked into one of the windows of a dark house and saw something glowing in the reflection. I thought the angel had followed me, but when I looked around all I saw was myself, so I looked back at the window and realized it was me," Serena stopped and looked at me, I could tell she was waiting for judgment, judgment that wouldn't come, I thought secretly. What she had done was right, and it was not silly for her to think an angel had come, she still held onto her religion with the lasts hopes of it being true, I had surpassed those hopes when my farther never came home.

"So I think that I can send like an electric force with my mind, and I have this shield thing that I can make that looks like the same white light thing as the electric force. But every time I use my gift, the curse comes with it, my body will glow like you just saw, but its all over in the same design with the little explosion star. And I can almost feel it in me, the energy. I know it sounds stupid and I must sound really uneducated, but it's not like they teach us this kind of thing at school." She had truly opened up to me, and I could still tell that she was waiting for judgment, she didn't sound like she knew a clue of what was happening, but neither did I when it first happened to me.

"Ok then, I'll tell you my story now. I guess that's the least I could do. I think my mutation came from my father, you see, there was this toxic spill at the nuclear power plant before I was born that my father was in. He should have died then, but he didn't. My mother thinks I'm like this because she sinned when she was younger and married a poor man. I don't really know or care at this point, but it seems that I have better reflexes and physical abilities then most humans, and it also seems that I'm, somewhat of a genius. And as you've seen, my feet have mutated to adapt to my reflexes, or maybe my reflexes have adapted to my feet, I am unsure. I know it sounds out there and I don't mean to brag or anything but I just understand and learn things much faster then everyone else, it seems."

"Or it could just be you go to school with idiots, but I don't think your bragging, I also think that its true," Serena had this kindness in her eyes as she said this, "I mean, you seem to have read every book in the library and I've seen you reading textbooks, textbooks Hank! No one reads textbooks for fun, so I think you could be a genius," It took me a little of guard that she knew so much about me and even knew my name, though I knew hers, but still...

"Thanks Serena, I got to go home. We should be having dinner soon," And it was the truth, mother would be mad if I was late, but I also needed to ponder of Serena's mutation or gift or whatever it was she could do.

"Oh you're right, sorry for keeping you so long," Serena said with a laugh as she looked up to the dark night sky.

Hopping the six foot fence and landing in my back yard with ease, I heard Serena mutter "show off" and her fading footsteps and the opening of her back door. I laughed softly while putting my shoes back on before going in for dinner. Mother would have a fit if she found out I had been running around our backyard like an 'ape' again.

Though I didn't much care right then, because I think I just made my first real friend and she seemed to be a mutant to add to it.

**So what did you think? Did you like? Hate it? ... well lets hope you liked it. **

**You really don't get to know the characters personalities that well, but that will come with part two of the prolog (ya I know TWO parts) **

**Well I think you should leave a comment, but that's just my (cough* VERY IMPORTANT* cough) opinion. **

**So you should leave a comment, like really. **

**Oh and a picture of Serena in her glowing form is on my page!**

**Xoxoxo **

**Carpella**


	2. Prologue Part 2

Prologue Pt 2

The weeks that passed my encounter with Serena were fantastic. It was almost like I was starting a whole new life, I had a friend, of course that friend didn't come with other friends as it did with most people and I didn't all of a sudden become super popular but I had a friend and she wasn't like the other students at school. We shared no classes together, I was taking all the advanced classes and higher level classes that no 6th grader should be taking, or so I've been told often.

Serena was the friend I needed; she encouraged me and supported me in my choice to send an application to a gifted boarding school. When my mother would come home drunk, Serena would come out and talk with me in her backyard, we never went in her house though. In these back yard meeting, she would tell me how I would one day get away, but I wondered what her plans were, I asked several time, but every time I asked, a sad look would cross her face before she would look up to the sky and say that she was undecided. I had no way of knowing what she meant, for I rarely talked to anyone outside of Serena and my mother, I really couldn't read people well at all.

Serena and I wouldn't go out together, the only place to go was the mall and we both saw no point in wasting our time and money there, we simply stayed home in our backyards. Sometimes we would run off to the forest at the end of our street. The forest was never a scary place for me, but Serena said that it gave her fear of what could have been in there, so on her request we stopped going. I still went without her, all the animals and plants intrigued me, but Serena would always get angry with me for going away like that, and today was one of these days.

"Why do you have to go out there? You know how dangerous it can be! For a genius you're acting pretty stupid right now, one of those animals could hurt you! Or worse kill you!"

"Nothing going to hurt me and you know it!" I yelled back fed up with her telling me what to do. "You always have to be near the house! What are you hiding?!" Serena always wanted to stay in yelling distance of her house, I never questioned her but now it was getting on my nerves, she can't run my life with her own problems.

"Think about someone besides yourself for once Hank! My parents are there, ok? Happy!? My parents both need me, so stop yelling at me and GROW UP! I thought this was a bad idea from the start; I should have never become friend with you! You're selfish and rude!" Serena ran inside with that. She slammed the door, making me jump, but I thought little of it at the time, fights like this would break out often, and soon enough we would make up one way or another, mainly her coming to me, but this fight didn't seem to be like the rest, she didn't come to make up with me.

The days that followed our fight were agonizing; I had never felt so alone. At school I was back to sitting by myself during lunch and if I saw Serena she would give me a cold glare before walking on. I tried everything I could think of to try to make her happy. I went to her house almost every day but she never answered and I got her flowers but when I looked out my window, I saw them in her trash can by the street.

One day when I went to her house, someone answered, but it wasn't Serena. It was an elderly lady that was as frail and thin as a yellowing leaf and her face held a small smile like she knew a secret no one else did. She looked a little to the left of my head and nodded her head before turning around.

"Honey come see! Its John, you know John from work. I think he'd here to give you that raise. Oh dear me, did I just say that out loud?" The women, whom I took to be Serena's mom Mrs. Grant, said with a giggle.

"Miss, um, miss," I said loudly trying to get Mrs. Grants attention, "I'm not John miss, my names Hank. I'm a friend of your daughters. Miss please, miss!" Walking in, I looked around. My house was shabby with my mother's small income but this looked horrid. The wall paper was peeling all over and there were three very different chairs at the kitchen table. There was a hallway to my left that appeared to have two bedrooms, though both doors were closed, and to my right was another door that I assumed was a bathroom.

"So John what are you here for? Good news I hope. Steve has been working hard and long waiting for this raise," Mrs. Grant said with a smile as she patted what could only be her husband's hand as he sat at the kitchen table in front of me. Mr. Grant was just as frail and thin as his wife, but unlike his wife, he didn't have a smile on his face. He was looking out through the small kitchen to the back window, and he didn't seem to know that I had entered his house.

"Where are my manners? I better get you something to drink? Tea? Well of course tea, that's all you have with your lemon slice. That will just take me a minute. You wait right there, take a seat at the table if you would like." And with that Mrs. Grant went the five feet to the connected kitchen.

I watched her as she went through her fridge and took out an orange; Mrs. Grant then went through a kitchen cabinet and after a few minutes, produced a knife. She was gripping the knife like her life depended on it and her knuckles were turning white from the strain. I saw in her face what looked like confusion just before her face become calm again.

I watched the knife drop, as if it were in slow motion. The knife was heading straight down with the sharp end pointed down. I leapt across the room as quick as I could and just barley knocked the knife off course. Time sped up after that and Mrs. Grant was looking at me in confusion and then down at the knife.

"John, why did you knock that out of my hand? I was only trying to get your lemon slice to put on your tea," Mrs. Grant said in confusion, hurt was plain in her voice and in her face.

"John! What did you do to my wife? If you touched her, I swear I'll..." Mr. Grant suddenly came to life and his thin pale face was read with anger as he pushed his wired glasses up his nose to stare at me through his gray white bangs. His stare might have frightened me, had he not been staring at a spot just below my nose. It seemed that like his wife, he didn't really see me either.

"Dad? Dad is something wrong? What's all the yell- what are you doing here?" The concern in Serena's voice dropped out as she saw me. Her words dripped with venom as she stared me down in her night gown and wet hair, just coming out of the shower.

"Don't talk to John like that; he's going to give your father a raise. Just go to your room and let the adults handle this." Mrs. Grant seemed to all but forget about the knife incident and like his wife; Mr. Grant didn't seemed the least bit concerned anymore. His face was back to its normal shade and he slowly walked back to the kitchen table to stare out the back window again.

"John? Who's John? This is Ha- Um I mean, John came here to talk to me, mom, you don't need to worry about it, just go back to drawing or watch the woods with dad. John and I are just going to go outside and have a little talk. I'll be right back mom!" I could see the mask Serena was putting up to cover up her embarrassment and horror at me seeing her parents like this.

Serena walked out the front door without a backwards glace and I quickly followed. She looked up at the bright sun in the mid afternoon heat. She looked at anything but me and all the while her face became redder and redder from embarrassment and a bit of anger.

"I'm sorry," I finally broke in looking at Serena, she was now looking down at her shoes, "I was being selfish and rude like you said and I think we should still be friends. You're the best friend in the world and really the only friend I've ever had. Please Serena forgive me." And I did mean it, I had never had a true friend before, and Serena seemed to be just what I needed, she had been my rock when my mother came home late at night smelling of beer and smoke.

"I'm sorry Hank," Serena finally said, her brown eyes tearing up as she looked into my eyes, "I can't do this. I just wanted to be a friend to you, but you far exceed me in so much and you are always talking about how awful your mutation is, but you can't even see what a great guy you are. All you want to do is get away, and I get that, but when you leave I know I will also be left behind. I want to end this the least painful way for me, I know it's selfish, but ever time you talk about the gifted school, I can feel the pain deep down at the thought of being alone again. It will be even harder when you go away, so I'm just going to end it now. I know you won't come back once you leave, you have nothing to come back to, you'll leave your mother because she has made her choice and you'll make yours. I can't leave my parents; they had no choice in this it wasn't there decision to waste away like this. I have to stay, I just have to. I'm sorry, I must seem so selfish, but I know it will be harder if I wait any longer."

Wet, huge tears were streaming down Serena's cheeks, her face was flushed but not from embarrassment anymore. Some of her dark black curls were wet and sticking to her cheeks but when I tried to wipe them away she stumbled backwards into her front door.

"Don't," She whispered to me, her body shaking, "Please don't make this harder then it needs to be. I have to go, I-I just have to go. Don't cause me anymore pain."

*Serena*

"Don't cause me anymore pain," the word whispered past my lips almost unwillingly. I could see the pain it caused Hank, he looked hurt and about to cry and I wanted so badly to hug him, but if this started, it would never stop.

Slowly backing up, I opened my front door and slipped in, Hank's face seared into my mind. Sobs racking my body and bumps going up and down my legs, I slowly sunk down with my back against the door. The pain was almost too much to bear; it started in my chest and spread to all my limbs.

My parents were both sitting at the kitchen table, my mother was rambling on about someone or something, she was completely oblivious to the fact that her husband was looking out the window not hearing her at all.

Years ago when I was younger, my mother would have noticed my pained face and would have tried to comfort me, but that was the past. I slowly got up and went to my room, not caring to look after my parents tonight.

I jumped onto my small bed and the cries of pain took me over, I sobbed out for help from someone, anyone. I cried until I ran out of tears and then I just kept sobbing. I laid in the bed like that for hours and hours. But after the tears had stopped, and I felt slightly more clam, I whipped my face and went out to check on my parents. Smile plastered on my face, I walked out to see them still sitting at the table, and I couldn't be mad at them for being oblivious to me, for not noticing how red my eyes were and my tearstained face, I couldn't be upset at all, because I loved them, and they had loved me.

*Hank*

I watched Serena's house for hours, but she never came out. I went into her backyard and waited by her favorite tree, but she still wouldn't come out. The emptiness set in around three in the morning. I had been looking aimlessly at her house for hours, and there was still no sign of her.

She didn't return to school after that day. I went to her house everyday and still she wouldn't come out at my knockings. I gave up after a month and just tried to go back to life before Serena. I went back to my studies and worked harder and longer then ever before. I read all the senior textbooks for advanced classes.

I pushed ahead of all of my peers and the letter from the gifted school finally came. I would now attend Hale's School of the Gifted; the school was rumored to work with the CIA.

The day I left, Serena looked out of her front window as I packed all my belongings in a taxi. There was no emotion on her face and she simply waved like we hadn't been best friends only months before, she waved like we had known each other and never really talked, and I suppose it was like that, I had thought I had known her, but it turned out I knew barley anything about her.

Prologue Pt 2

The weeks that passed my encounter with Serena were fantastic. It was almost like I was starting a whole new life, I had a friend, of course that friend didn't come with other friends as it did with most people and I didn't all of a sudden become super popular but I had a friend and she wasn't like the other students at school. We shared no classes together, I was taking all the advanced classes and higher level classes that no 6th grader should be taking, or so I've been told often.

Serena was the friend I needed; she encouraged me and supported me in my choice to send an application to a gifted boarding school. When my mother would come home drunk, Serena would come out and talk with me in her backyard, we never went in her house though. In these back yard meeting, she would tell me how I would one day get away, but I wondered what her plans were, I asked several time, but every time I asked, a sad look would cross her face before she would look up to the sky and say that she was undecided. I had no way of knowing what she meant, for I rarely talked to anyone outside of Serena and my mother, I really couldn't read people well at all.

Serena and I wouldn't go out together, the only place to go was the mall and we both saw no point in wasting our time and money there, we simply stayed home in our backyards. Sometimes we would run off to the forest at the end of our street. The forest was never a scary place for me, but Serena said that it gave her fear of what could have been in there, so on her request we stopped going. I still went without her, all the animals and plants intrigued me, but Serena would always get angry with me for going away like that, and today was one of these days.

"Why do you have to go out there? You know how dangerous it can be! For a genius you're acting pretty stupid right now, one of those animals could hurt you! Or worse kill you!"

"Nothing going to hurt me and you know it!" I yelled back fed up with her telling me what to do. "You always have to be near the house! What are you hiding?!" Serena always wanted to stay in yelling distance of her house, I never questioned her but now it was getting on my nerves, she can't run my life with her own problems.

"Think about someone besides yourself for once Hank! My parents are there, ok? Happy!? My parents both need me, so stop yelling at me and GROW UP! I thought this was a bad idea from the start; I should have never become friend with you! You're selfish and rude!" Serena ran inside with that. She slammed the door, making me jump, but I thought little of it at the time, fights like this would break out often, and soon enough we would make up one way or another, mainly her coming to me, but this fight didn't seem to be like the rest, she didn't come to make up with me.

The days that followed our fight were agonizing; I had never felt so alone. At school I was back to sitting by myself during lunch and if I saw Serena she would give me a cold glare before walking on. I tried everything I could think of to try to make her happy. I went to her house almost every day but she never answered and I got her flowers but when I looked out my window, I saw them in her trash can by the street.

One day when I went to her house, someone answered, but it wasn't Serena. It was an elderly lady that was as frail and thin as a yellowing leaf and her face held a small smile like she knew a secret no one else did. She looked a little to the left of my head and nodded her head before turning around.

"Honey come see! Its John, you know John from work. I think he'd here to give you that raise. Oh dear me, did I just say that out loud?" The women, whom I took to be Serena's mom Mrs. Grant, said with a giggle.

"Miss, um, miss," I said loudly trying to get Mrs. Grants attention, "I'm not John miss, my names Hank. I'm a friend of your daughters. Miss please, miss!" Walking in, I looked around. My house was shabby with my mother's small income but this looked horrid. The wall paper was peeling all over and there were three very different chairs at the kitchen table. There was a hallway to my left that appeared to have two bedrooms, though both doors were closed, and to my right was another door that I assumed was a bathroom.

"So John what are you here for? Good news I hope. Steve has been working hard and long waiting for this raise," Mrs. Grant said with a smile as she patted what could only be her husband's hand as he sat at the kitchen table in front of me. Mr. Grant was just as frail and thin as his wife, but unlike his wife, he didn't have a smile on his face. He was looking out through the small kitchen to the back window, and he didn't seem to know that I had entered his house.

"Where are my manners? I better get you something to drink? Tea? Well of course tea, that's all you have with your lemon slice. That will just take me a minute. You wait right there, take a seat at the table if you would like." And with that Mrs. Grant went the five feet to the connected kitchen.

I watched her as she went through her fridge and took out an orange; Mrs. Grant then went through a kitchen cabinet and after a few minutes, produced a knife. She was gripping the knife like her life depended on it and her knuckles were turning white from the strain. I saw in her face what looked like confusion just before her face become calm again.

I watched the knife drop, as if it were in slow motion. The knife was heading straight down with the sharp end pointed down. I leapt across the room as quick as I could and just barley knocked the knife off course. Time sped up after that and Mrs. Grant was looking at me in confusion and then down at the knife.

"John, why did you knock that out of my hand? I was only trying to get your lemon slice to put on your tea," Mrs. Grant said in confusion, hurt was plain in her voice and in her face.

"John! What did you do to my wife? If you touched her, I swear I'll..." Mr. Grant suddenly came to life and his thin pale face was read with anger as he pushed his wired glasses up his nose to stare at me through his gray white bangs. His stare might have frightened me, had he not been staring at a spot just below my nose. It seemed that like his wife, he didn't really see me either.

"Dad? Dad is something wrong? What's all the yell- what are you doing here?" The concern in Serena's voice dropped out as she saw me. Her words dripped with venom as she stared me down in her night gown and wet hair, just coming out of the shower.

"Don't talk to John like that; he's going to give your father a raise. Just go to your room and let the adults handle this." Mrs. Grant seemed to all but forget about the knife incident and like his wife; Mr. Grant didn't seemed the least bit concerned anymore. His face was back to its normal shade and he slowly walked back to the kitchen table to stare out the back window again.

"John? Who's John? This is Ha- Um I mean, John came here to talk to me, mom, you don't need to worry about it, just go back to drawing or watch the woods with dad. John and I are just going to go outside and have a little talk. I'll be right back mom!" I could see the mask Serena was putting up to cover up her embarrassment and horror at me seeing her parents like this.

Serena walked out the front door without a backwards glace and I quickly followed. She looked up at the bright sun in the mid afternoon heat. She looked at anything but me and all the while her face became redder and redder from embarrassment and a bit of anger.

"I'm sorry," I finally broke in looking at Serena, she was now looking down at her shoes, "I was being selfish and rude like you said and I think we should still be friends. You're the best friend in the world and really the only friend I've ever had. Please Serena forgive me." And I did mean it, I had never had a true friend before, and Serena seemed to be just what I needed, she had been my rock when my mother came home late at night smelling of beer and smoke.

"I'm sorry Hank," Serena finally said, her brown eyes tearing up as she looked into my eyes, "I can't do this. I just wanted to be a friend to you, but you far exceed me in so much and you are always talking about how awful your mutation is, but you can't even see what a great guy you are. All you want to do is get away, and I get that, but when you leave I know I will also be left behind. I want to end this the least painful way for me, I know it's selfish, but ever time you talk about the gifted school, I can feel the pain deep down at the thought of being alone again. It will be even harder when you go away, so I'm just going to end it now. I know you won't come back once you leave, you have nothing to come back to, you'll leave your mother because she has made her choice and you'll make yours. I can't leave my parents; they had no choice in this it wasn't there decision to waste away like this. I have to stay, I just have to. I'm sorry, I must seem so selfish, but I know it will be harder if I wait any longer."

Wet, huge tears were streaming down Serena's cheeks, her face was flushed but not from embarrassment anymore. Some of her dark black curls were wet and sticking to her cheeks but when I tried to wipe them away she stumbled backwards into her front door.

"Don't," She whispered to me, her body shaking, "Please don't make this harder then it needs to be. I have to go, I-I just have to go. Don't cause me anymore pain."

*Serena*

"Don't cause me anymore pain," the word whispered past my lips almost unwillingly. I could see the pain it caused Hank, he looked hurt and about to cry and I wanted so badly to hug him, but if this started, it would never stop.

Slowly backing up, I opened my front door and slipped in, Hank's face seared into my mind. Sobs racking my body and bumps going up and down my legs, I slowly sunk down with my back against the door. The pain was almost too much to bear; it started in my chest and spread to all my limbs.

My parents were both sitting at the kitchen table, my mother was rambling on about someone or something, she was completely oblivious to the fact that her husband was looking out the window not hearing her at all.

Years ago when I was younger, my mother would have noticed my pained face and would have tried to comfort me, but that was the past. I slowly got up and went to my room, not caring to look after my parents tonight.

I jumped onto my small bed and the cries of pain took me over, I sobbed out for help from someone, anyone. I cried until I ran out of tears and then I just kept sobbing. I laid in the bed like that for hours and hours. But after the tears had stopped, and I felt slightly more clam, I whipped my face and went out to check on my parents. Smile plastered on my face, I walked out to see them still sitting at the table, and I couldn't be mad at them for being oblivious to me, for not noticing how red my eyes were and my tearstained face, I couldn't be upset at all, because I loved them, and they had loved me.

*Hank*

I watched Serena's house for hours, but she never came out. I went into her backyard and waited by her favorite tree, but she still wouldn't come out. The emptiness set in around three in the morning. I had been looking aimlessly at her house for hours, and there was still no sign of her.

She didn't return to school after that day. I went to her house everyday and still she wouldn't come out at my knockings. I gave up after a month and just tried to go back to life before Serena. I went back to my studies and worked harder and longer then ever before. I read all the senior textbooks for advanced classes.

I pushed ahead of all of my peers and the letter from the gifted school finally came. I would now attend Hale's School of the Gifted; the school was rumored to work with the CIA.

The day I left, Serena looked out of her front window as I packed all my belongings in a taxi. There was no emotion on her face and she simply waved like we hadn't been best friends only months before, she waved like we had known each other and never really talked, and I suppose it was like that, I had thought I had known her, but it turned out I knew barley anything about her.

**I know that was packed with drama, but I'm just that kind of gal!**

**I love beast and Serena won't be gone forever trust me, try as he might, Hank can't simply walk away from his past like that. **

**It will come back to haunt him.**

**Please review! I need some opinions, I can't read your mind to see if you love it or not! **


	3. Chapter 1

Ch 1- Revised!

Raven smiled at me and moved some of her blonde hair behind her ear. "So tell me," she whispered with a coy smile, "about yourself. Where you've been what you've done. Everything really."

I smiled, trying to cover up the nervous sickness that was in the pit of my stomach. I was alone with a beautiful girl, but that same beautiful girl asked me about the one thing I hadn't thought about in years.

"Well, I-I was born in a small town in Tennessee. I left home to go to a gifted school when I was about 11 years old." I purposely didn't mention anything about my parents and the people I knew, that was better left unsaid. "I went to Hale's School of the Gifted. The school saw potential in me and later shipped me off here to work for the CIA as you can see. I think I was about 16 when they brought me here. No one knew about my mutation until Charles came. I guess it was about time to tell someone." Or not, I still don't really trust Charles, if he could tell I was a mutant he should have been able to tell that no else knew, but I suppose with time I would have to forgive him.

"I know, it's not that interesting, but it's all I have," I said with a sigh as I looked at Raven's face. She was just so pretty, there was no way she was really interested or into me. No one had ever liked me.

"Not interesting?" She said loudly with a laugh. "That's so cool, Hank! Tell me about the school and the CIA. How was it? You have to tell me everything about it!"

**At that moment….**

*Serena*

"We are here today to celebrate the life of Steve Grant. A noble man that worked…"

The pastor kept talking on and on, even though I was the only one at the funeral. My mother was in the hospital under intensive care. I held my head high as I looked over at my father's peaceful face.

I dull pain had been in my chest ever since Hank left. The name even in my mind was bitter and hurt to think of. The pain in my chest amplified even more as I sat there all alone in my long black dress. Numbness had washed over me since the day my father passed, my mother had been entered the hospital right after.

The pastor had stopped talking, and he seemed bored standing there waiting for me to move. I walked up with my one yellow rose and placed it in my fathers lap. Before he had become sick, before he and my mother started to loose themselves, he had told me that when he died he wanted only colored flowers. He didn't want it to be sad, in fact he wanted it to be a party, a way to celebrate his life, not to weep over it, but I guess there was no one here to have a party with, and though at the time it seemed funny, now it just seemed ironic and depressing.

The men came to place the coffin in the grave and quickly started to shovel dirt back over it. I placed three small orange flowers over the freshly turned earth. The tears that I had been holding back since Steve Grant had dropped to the floor now started to rush out of me as I sat there on the edge of the cemetery.

In that moment, I thought of Hank. I would have had him come just to let some of the pain go away for a while, but I didn't know where to find him. For the first time I was willing to give in and look for him, to let down my hard exterior, but he was no where to be found. The gifted school that he went off to told me that he had left a few years ago to work for some secret division or something, they weren't much help.

**Ok yes you can scream at me now, I know it was way too short, but I didn't want to try to do too many scenes from the movie, so you got this really short chapter. **

**Again I'll say sorry **

**So **

**SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY! (x10000)**

**Please forgive me and don't through rocks at me *cringe* **

**Ok well bye!**


	4. Chapter 2

Ch 2

*Hank*

The school was slowly being built up, though Charles made sure to not room me with anyone, he was the only one who knew of my animal fits. They didn't happen as often as before, but when I started to think of Her, I couldn't even think her name anymore, I felt the pain. The pain always started in my chest, but was soon replaced by numbness when I would go into an animal rage, most of the time I could get out to the forest before anything drastic would happen.

My love, or so I thought, had left me, for good reason too. I had practically called her ugly, I had preferred her fake self over her real self, I was selfish. I was only thinking about what I could do for her, I should have known. I should have been better to her, I should have seen that deep down she didn't really want to be changed.

I should have known.

But she was gone and I was stuck here teaching younger student, understandably of course. If I came across her again, she would probably try to harm me or worse. I had been cruel and selfish to her, and she had left, as had everyone else I had known.

I had a commitment to this school and Charles, and I don't think I could bare to let him down again. Having Her go was bad enough for him, if I were to go he would have to find a whole new teacher and partner. Erik wasn't much help, he ruined Her.

And now I was stuck here in my own self pity, as selfish as ever, looking out my window as a new student arrived. Charles was usually the one to welcome them, as I sometimes scared them away and frightened the children's parents.

Today, though, Alex was out to meet them. Charles trusted Alex, Sean, and I above all other students, we were the golden three. The first three, though I was usually the third wheel. Alex had stopped teasing me after Raven left, he didn't understand what it felt like to loose her, but he could tell I was at the end of my rope.

When I wasn't teaching class or training, I was in the lab working on new designs and alarm systems for the school. Charles never told me I should make them or even suggested it to me, but after what happened in Cuba, I knew people would be coming, when they found us of course.

After Cuba, we would never be safe. Charles was the first one to get out of the shock of what happened. He started to organize the school and find fellow mutants, he lost the most, he was the only one of us that trusted Erik and when he saw Erik's fall, it broke him. He lost his sister and his lover, yet he still managed to pick himself up and keep going. He was a brave man and I think I'll always look up to him after that.

He was kind to all the students and would try to make them feel at home, though that wasn't that hard when most of the student were already acting like a family. A family I've never had, but a family all the same.

The water balloon fights were always something the student in my class looked forward to. I taught science and math, so the students ranged from 12 year olds to 18 year olds. I preferred to be called Hank, though some of them would call me Beast, but I gave out as little personal information as possible.

Alex, Sean, and Charles were the only ones who knew that I was only 18 myself, though I think I act a little more mature then Alex and Sean's teenage behavior. The pranks never stopped for the two of them, they usually tried to get the older boys and sometimes would take along a little 12 year old to show them the ropes.

The girl in the drive way had long black hair that went to her mid back, she was gorgeous, but there was something off about her. Her tanned face looked around the grounds like she was seeing something the rest of us couldn't. With my animal senses, from here, 30 yards away and three stories up, I would see that her eyes were fiery red. Unnaturally so.

Alex was speaking to her, though I couldn't hear him thought the wall, and she was nodding her head, though her eyes were still fixed on something across the grounds. She pushed her hair behind her ear and grappled her bags off the ground. Alex took the rest of her bags and they headed inside.

*Alex*

Charles hadn't told me much about this girl, Claire. All I knew was her name and that her mutation enabled her to see things others can't see. He didn't enlighten me on what that means, and I could tell from the way her eyes searched the grounds that she could see **a lot** more then I could.

After picking up her large duffle bag, I led her to the second floor and to the girls side, all the while explaining where everything is.

"So the kitchen is downstairs and next to it is the den where most people will hang out when they're not in classes or training. This is the girls' side of the second floor and the boys' side is to the right of the stair case. The door has to be open if boys are in the girls' room and vise-versa. The classrooms are on the third floor next to the staff dormitory, and the training rooms are in the basement and first floor. Prof. will come by to help you chose what courses you will take and where exactly they are. He might even have a map if you lucky." The map part was a complete lie, Charles would never waste time doing something as stupid as making a map when he could just mentally contact the lost student, though for some reason he never helped me when I got lost.

Maybe because I should know my way around after two years of living here, maybe. Meh.

Claire was standing over her bed looking at it and shifting the sheets around. This girl is odd, I mean, who messes up a made bed?

"If there's anything you need, don't be afraid to ask or whatever," I said without much care, she better not come bother me. I've had enough little students to deal with, I don't want another 16 year old coming to ask me where the training rooms are. Sure I'm only 18, but I might not be as mature as Hank, but I'm mature enough to hate younger kids, if that's mature and it it isn't well whatever.

"Well there is one thing that I would like to ask," Claire said not looking up from the bed, "I would like to know who stayed in this bedroom before me. She stayed here for some time, and I was told this school has only been open for about a year and a half."

"I don't know, ask Hank or Prof. They might know." Why does she care? Gosh this is going to be a long year.

*Charles*

I was looking through Claire's mind and seeing out of her eyes as Alex led her to Raven's old room. I should have known the day would come when something occupied it, but I didn't expect it to be someone like Claire.

Claire could see where Raven had been, she could see how much Raven used the window seat in the corner of the room, she could see how Raven had bounced on the bed as a child she could see almost all of Raven's essence in there.

A form of Raven was practically in her mind; an outline of Raven's true form was in the dusty gold that Claire saw all the past things in. Claire's gift intrigued me; she could see paths in gold of where people had been, if there was enough of one person in the room, like right now, she could almost make out the whole person. Claire had spent all 28 years of her life seeing this, it amazed me, and I could see there was something more to her mutation, something she hadn't tole me when I talked over the phone to her.

She didn't seem to age, like Hank once told me about Raven, she looked to be 16 but I could see the thought process of her mind. She was much too mature to be in the student dorms, but she came here trying to act like a 16 year old and she still seemed content with just being a student, I would have to search deeper sometime to see why she so wanted to not become a staff here and what she seemed to hide from me.

The golden dust image if Raven stayed frozen in my mind as I withdrew from Claire's mind. The thought of her still brought me pain, for with her came the thoughts of Erik and what he might be doing right now. The lives he might be ending.

I tried ever day to find him or one of his members from the Hell Fire club, but Cerebro couldn't find them. Though that seemed to be Cerebro's only flaw, with it, I had found the students and teachers to build a school.

The students were the easy part, it was the teachers. Older mutants had families and tried to forget as much about their mutation as possible. I had only been able to get Jane so far. She taught history, while Hank taught both math and science, which left me with English. I wished to find a math, English, and Spanish teacher by the end of this year, but only few mutants were educated and wanted to be reminded that they were a mutant.

I helped Alex and Sean train some of the older students, though I hoped that one day I would be able to train and teach the mutants about the outside world. Most mutants here viewed the school as a safe haven, and were protected, but soon I would have to bring back to them the reality of the real world.

How my mind wonders, hmm.

I must get down to dinner so I can help Jane prepare the food, that reminds me that we also need a chef or someone to cook the food, and we need to start a choirs list or the school will be a mess soon.

_Help!_ It was a soft cry but it penetrated my thoughts, so I spread my telepathy field across the whole school ground but I couldn't find any students in distress, so I tried to forget it.

*Hank*

Charles seemed distracted the whole meal, he almost forgot to introduce the new students, whose name I found out was Claire. He wasn't himself.

After dinner ended he headed up to his room on the third floor, using the elevators I had built for him.

I wanted to follow him but knew that I could be about Her. She was always haunting my mind and this new girl, Claire, didn't help. She was in Her old room. It scared me how much it hurt that someone else was in Her room. I almost wanted to hurt Claire, but logic won over and kept telling me that it wasn't Claire's fault. It wasn't, but her staying there made it all so real that She was gone.

And that hurt. It hurt too much.

I ran into the forest. Trying to get away.

Trying to forget.

*Charles*

Raven, in her blue form, was running to me, away form some dark shadowed monster behind her. She screamed to me mentally:

_Help! Help! Help!_

But I couldn't move. I watched in horror as a hand reached out from the shadows to take her, but Raven slipped away. But her blue from changed, it started in her hands and she was soon that of a slightly smaller girl was red skin that I can only describe as dragon skin. The girls hair was dark and had red streaks in it, and the horror from Raven's face vanished when this new girl came.

She had a look of steel in her red eyes and as she turned around to face the monster, everything went white.

Sweat was poring down my face and chest as I sat straight up in bed. The lights overhead had turned on and Jane was at my side looking at me with concern.

"Charles, Charles!" She whispered squeezing my hand. "What is it Charles? I could hear you moaning from the hallway. Was it a dream? Charles?"

"I don't know," I whispered looking her in the eye, her light brown hair partly in her eyes but she shook her head to move it away. "I've never had a dream like that. I just don't know."

**Dunnn dunn DUUUUNNNNN!**

**What could it be that has Charles' afraid. What was the dragon girl in the dream? Is she friend of foe? Is she even real? **

**Well you gotta keep reading to find that crap out. **

**I would like to thank my first reviewer! You are awesome! **

**Setting a great example there, for EVERYONE ELSE to review! **

**You know you want to, and really you should! We all hate/love Beast deep down.**

**So review and all that jazz. **

**Hope you enjoyed!**


	5. Chapter 3

*Hank*

I looked over at Claire as she was writing down the math equation on the board. She was one of the only students that were in my Calculus class. I had taken that course when I was in 6th or 7th grade, but I was surprised with Claire's education record or the one that Charles had provided me with.

Though, since the three months since Claire has been here, she has shown that she can keep up in the class, with the only other student being Sean, while Alex never even finished 10th grade.

But still, there was something off about Claire, I don't know what. She seemed too mature for her age. She never participated in the weekly water balloon fights and rarely talked to other students. She often would go and talk to Charles and I had a feeling that he knew something about her.

Claire never wanted to talk to Alex in class and wound stair at the empty desks, Charles had told me that she had the ability to see were people had been. He said it was like a gold dust train and each person had a different feel or taste. She often didn't come to the lab for testing unless Charles was there and even when he was she wouldn't try to explain her mutation.

She was mysterious and from the looks of it had more then one secret; although, I didn't much care to find out about her. Many of the mutants had secrets, but she was the only one so upfront about hers.

Charles had already brought in another student a month after Claire. Jubilation Lee always insisted that I call her Jubilee, or else she would call me Beast. Her mutation aloud her to shoot fiery balls of light from her hands that could easily burn you. Sean had made the comment that she was a fireball herself, and even though I think he had a different meaning for the term, I agree.

She was loud and upfront about anything and everything, she wasn't one to hid her emotions and thoughts and would often point out in her math class her pointless math was if you were going to major in English.

I tended to like her more then Claire. She would talk to me and not really care what I looked like, but she was always trying to get me to help her with boy trouble, and I'm not gay so really I was no help out all.

She didn't care how uncomfortable I was about talking about my past and would often bagger me until the Beast took over and I would have run out the room. She didn't understand what happened when I went beast, no one really did.

It was like I saw though a red haze and everything around me was a threat. The thought of going beast scared me more than anything. I liked having control, but when I go beast, all control is gone, I guess that's what being drunk feels like.

"Mr. Hank? Mr. Hank?-"

"EARTH TO HANK!" the screaming voice of Sean pulled me out of my thoughts. I looked up from the ground to see a red faced Sean with a grin on his face and an annoyed looking Claire who was holding out some papers for me to take.

I quickly took her pages and gave Sean a withering glare before going to the back of the room to my desk. Sean sat down to get back to work, while Claire walked out the room without a second glance.

*Charles*

I looked over as Claire faced the window; she was sitting across from me in a cushy chair in my study. Her feet were propped against the window seal and she seemed at peace for the moment. She hadn't revealed many of her secrets to me yet, of course, I wasn't dumb enough to ask about most of the more personal ones, like why she faked her age.

"Claire, dear, tell me about what you see when someone uses there mutation. You mentioned the other day that you can tell when a person uses their mutation."

"It's like a light come off you, and if you have a strong mutation, the light is just brighter. Your mutation, for example is very bright and that's why I ask not to face you when we speak. Even if I close my eyes, I can still _see_ the light. Like today in math class, Hank was using his mutation by thinking and using the extra cells in his brain to over think anything and everything. Although, his light is naturally bright and on because his mutation is also on the outside."

"Glade to know what you think of dear Hank. I'll have to tell him that he over thinks things."

"And Charles will you please just tell me what happens to Hank when he runs off to the woods. I can taste the change to his dust trail when he goes out. Something is wrong, and you know what it is. His dust trail almost tastes animal-like. I can taste a hint of beast in it."

"I've told you time and time again that I can't tell you. That is between Hank and I and if its bothering you so much, why don't you go ask him yourself."

"Or follow him."

"What? Follow him?"

"When he's in the wood of course. Use your brain Charles!"

"Why so interested in Hank now?"

"I want to do something! I've taken all these courses and they- crap did I just say that?"

"I was wondering how long it would take you to tell me. Hmm, some time it seems as you've been here three months."

"How long it would take me to- YOU'VE BEEN IN MY HEAD!" I had never seen this much emotion coming from Claire in the three months she's been here. Her cheeks were red with anger and her nose scrunched up.

"Pleas sit down Claire. You asked me not to go into your head the first time we met. I needed to see if you really wanted to stay here, so of course, I went through your thoughts to see. I'm sorry if I have offended you, but dear I could tell from the second I went into your mind that you were older then 16."

"YOU—UGH—YOU!" and with a sigh she sat back down in her seat and resumed looking out the window.

"Sorry," Claire whispered quietly after a few moments, "I don't normally act like that. Or really show any emotions. I'm just- I mean- sorry."

"It's okay Claire. It really is. Just tell me the truth this time. Start from the beginning."

**Hey every one! I want to thank those who have reviewed! It means a lot! And I want to thank those who **_**will **_**review, because I know you will, just a matter of time. **

**I'm thinking about having another story with Charles and Claire, but that's not going to be till after I finish this story. **

**I don't know how long this will be, but its going to go on till past the end of X3 or it should, I might change it. **

**I hope you liked it!**


	6. Chapter 4

**Ch 4**

***Jubilee* **

Hank was such an easy target to prank. He always is going around the school like a goober in his lab coat, although I would never dare comment on his blue fur. I know he has it bad, but I think deep down he likes me making fun of his goofy lab coat and glasses, it's a change from the blue hair.

He always slouched around the school, like he didn't know what the hell he was doing, but then he would have his moments. Well several moments, where his genius skills kicked in and he'd outsmart us all. I hope he feels proud about that at least, but his animal mutation thing is pretty cool in my opinion.

I would like to go jumping around the forest like a wild animal and get away with it. If I would go out to the forest and frolic about alone, Charles would have my head. I guess being younger has consequences, its not my fault I'm only fifteen, and maybe act a tad bit younger than that, but whatever, I'm old enough to know how to drive and crap like that.

I've been on the streets a bit, a few months, I know how to take care of myself, I'm not some dipshit, who can't do crap. I'm a modern woman of America, or so some magazine told me, I don't really think so, I mean most women aren't those big billionaires and crap.

Whatevers, I'm getting off topic hear, I was going to go on about Hank, but that's seems boring and pointless at the moment, so I might as well find him or something. I still can't find my way around this huge 'school'.

The staircase was coming up to my right and it opened down to front living room that had the tv in it and beyond the stairs was the boys dorms. It was all so much space, and really there weren't that many students to take up the space.

Running my hand along the railing, I bounced down the stairs and almost ran over Alex Summers. He thought he was too cool for all of us, and really he kinda pissed me off with his tough guy appearance.

"Watch where you're going," he said gruffly pushing me out of his. He took it too far, it was bad enough he complained about life and crap like that but now he was pushing me around like I was nothing.

"HEY! Excuse me, but I think it was your fault!" I said looking at him fiercely even though I was several inches shorter than him.

"Get over it." Turning his sandy blonde head away from me, he started to walk up the stairs. And as I watched him, the only thing that was going my mind was the thought of beating the crap out of is wimp ass body.

*Charles*

_THAT BITCH! THAT F**KING TARD BAG! SHE ISN'T GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!_ The headache was a dull throb from Alex's far from calm mind.

_Please Alex, calm your mind, I can't concentrate with your yelling. _

_STAY OUT OF MY HEAD! GOD YOU'RE SO SICK!_

_It's not my fault that you are screaming your thoughts for the heavens to hear. Please I would rather stay out of your head. _I could always get my mental voice to sound colder than my physical voice. I really did care about Alex, but at this moment I couldn't take his tantrums.

_Look into my mind and see what the bitch did!_ He didn't yell it this time, but I could tell the thought was aimed to me. He opened his mind up as wide as he knew how. Something was wrong if he was trusting me to go 'tramping' through his mind. He would never open his mind up this wide, even though I could easily see his past without him letting me.

As I walked the dark path of Alex's mind, I saw what he kept thinking about over and over, like it was a never ending cycle. It was him ripping his dark hoodie off his body as he pulled the black hood over his head. After the hoodie had come off, he examined it to find that there was a round dark burn on it.

_I'm coming _I replied to him, as I wheeled out my room and headed to the boys dorm. As I went down the halls, I reached out for another mind.

*Jubilee*

I heard him before I saw him, Alex would probably never be able to hold his temper in check, but I didn't matter much to me. He would never lay a finger on me, fear of my mutation and Charles' wrath kept him at bay.

Slamming my door open, red faced, he barreled into my room looking around it with mad eyes, not as in I'm pissed, but as in I'm insane. Running at me as I lay on my bed, I had just enough time to jump up and move to the corner of the room.

Alex picked himself up and cornered me, raising his fist, he started to pull back his arm for the first stick until some unknown force knocked him into me.

A blossom of pain appeared in the back of my head that hit the wall, it hurt too much. As I looked up from my spot on the floor, I felt someone slam to the ground next to me before everything went black.

*Charles*

I felt the pain come from Jubilation's mind right before she drifted off. I wheeling to her room, not trusting Hank in the state he was in.

*Hank*

I was walking the halls trying to find something to do when I heard the small gasp come from a room a few doors down. My mutation was always a curse, but at times like this I guess I could call it a gift-ish, animal senses did come in handy sometimes.

Quickly walking to the room I smelled it. The _anger_ it overpowered everything. I felt and smelled the anger rolling off of the body in the room, but under that I could also taste fear from someone else.

The animal woke at that, the smell of fear and anger it woke the beast. But I knew I could handle him. He wouldn't come out at just this, he would pace around, but something like this wouldn't set him off, not unless I thought about it too much. But I knew the Beast saw this as a challenge, the anger and fear, it was almost a sick little game of survival and who would end up on top.

As I looked into the room, I saw the hulking figure of Alex Summers in the corner of the room. In the girls dorm area, about to ask him what he was doing, I saw who was in his shadow. And the Beast saw too.

The Beast recognized her, he recognized her as friend and he saw Alex and foe. I couldn't even push reason into the Beast at this point.

I crumbled as it ripped through me. My will left and the Beast took over. I tried to close my eyes, but I saw all the Beast did through a blue haze. I felt myself run at Alex, I felt myself slam into him. I felt the pain, but I couldn't stop myself. I heard the crunch of bone, but still I couldn't stop.

I felt Charles enter my mind. He saw everything I saw, he knew and I felt his decision right before everything went black.

**Hey guys!**

**I know this took FORVER to get to yall, but school was annoying to say the least. **

**I've had three test so far this week and I'm going to have two more tomorrow. **

**I watch Dance Moms **

**I heart that show so much **

**More then the real housewives even**

**Its funny to watch rich people make fools of themselves…**

**Well review and all that jazz!**


	7. Chapter 5

Ch 5

*Hank*

The blue haze had already faded as I stood up, but what I had done didn't leave me. I looked down at Alex, who was in a protective crouch on the floor. His arm was bent at an impossible angle and I say a nasty cut on his cheek. The blood slowly stickled down his face to his chin. His mouth was set into a scrawl, but his eyes showed fear, the Beast picked up on the fear.

But there was something else in my head, a calming presence. Charles.

I looked behind me to see the man himself in the doorway. There was a looked of sorrow on his face and that's what drove it him. I had let the Beast roam free, I couldn't even stop him. I was incapable.

I looked back to Alex who was eyeing me warily and finally I looked to Jubalee, who was on the ground. There was no blood coming from her, but I could see a bruise forming on her forehead.

Trying not to become overwhelmed, I took a deep breath. That made it worse. I kept seeing everything play back in my head, it was all through a blue tint, but that didn't stop it from being any less vivid.

I couldn't take it so I ran, I did the only thing I seemed to know how to do, I let the Beast take over, and he sure didn't want to stay. I leaped over Charles and ran from the room. From the house. From my mistakes and failures.

A fleeting thought crossed my mind as I ran, but the Beast soon blocked him out, but not before he could say one thing.

_Home_

*Charles*

I had feared something like this would eventually happen, but I had assumed that Hank had better control over his mutation. He studied everyone else's, but by my own mistakes, I see that he only did this so he wouldn't have to look to his own.

He didn't have a home, he didn't count the school as a home, but the Beast did. The Beast knew where home was, it was the school, Hank didn't feel right here, but the Beast knew there was no where else to come back to.

Hank didn't want to try to understand the Beast, he just wanted it to go away. He wanted his old self back, he wanted to go back to the CIA. He wanted his old life back, he wanted to forget any of this had ever happened, he didn't want the pain of remembering.

The Beast, with its seemingly little logic and reason, knew that he couldn't go back. The Beast knew it would never be the same, the Beast seemed to understand and know what Hank couldn't. All of that wasn't really important, just my wandering mind.

Jubilation was who needed my help at the moment, the Beast would take care of Hank, but the young girl needed help.

"Alex please go get Sean and bring him here and then go to the infirmary." With Alex gone. I layed back in my chair and reached out for Hank. The Beast tried to shut me out, but my mental probe was to powerful. The Beast hadn't gone far, he was only at the edge of the forest looked up at the huge school and all the lights.

_Hank_, I said gently, not wanting to upset the Beast.

_Hank, please come back here. I know you didn't want to hurt Alex, you need to come back and help me with Jubilation. _I didn't add that I needed him to help me with Alex's arm; the Beast might not like the thought of helping Alex.

I felt Hank slowly float to the top of the waters the Beast mentally drowned him in. He was slowly coming up to control his actions. He regaining himself slowly.

_I'm coming. _He said shortly, before he mentally tried to shut me out. I could have easily pushed through his attempts, but I knew he needed his privacy. He was embarrassed and scared. He didn't need me tramping through his mind.

I felt Sean's mind draw close as I turned to face him when he entered the room. There was a grim look on his face, and as he surveyed the room, it only got worse. He walked to Jubilation without a word and picked her up in his arms. She hung limp as a child's doll.

He looked over at me, pain clearly in his eyes. "Is it true? Hank did this?" The words seemed to come out like curses and I cringed at the end. Nodding my head, I turned the wheelchair around and headed to the infirmary.

*Hank*

When I went into the infirmary to set Alex's arm, he almost didn't let me. Chalres said a few words to him and he grudgingly let me, though I could smell the fear rolling off of him the whole time.

Had I not done a seven week study on medical science, I would have been a nervous wreck, but I was in control. To me it was all just another lab, I could do it, was the only thing I was thinking to myself the whole time.

I had let everyone down already today, I let the Beast out and now the whole school probably knew. I had to make it up some how and if patching up Alex and Jubilee was the way, than I would do it.

No one would ever see me in the same light again, and no one would ever trust me, and that's what really scared me. I had to get peoples' trust back, and soon. I could only hope that Jubilee would forgive me. She really was one of my only friends. I had attended to her first, to Alex's dismay.

Running a few scans, I found that she had no internal bleeding and would be fine. She would have a nasty bruise on her forehead, and that would be a reminder for me. I do dearly hope she will forgive me. She was always so nice and rude at the same time.

The whole time I was helping Alex and Jubilee, I wouldn't meet anyone's eyes. I knew that disappointment would be evident as would fear and disgust. I hadn't had to live with this since the first time I changed, when I was trying to change my outward mutation. That had been a failure and it was a main reason that She left, well that doesn't matter. I can't thing of her now.

Running my hands through my thick blue hair, I looked over at Charles. Making sure to look everywhere but his eyes. "Is there anything else?"

_Its more of a private conversation, if you would like. _

Not looking at him, I left the room softly saying "Not now, please."

"What's with him?" I heard Alex ask Charles, a sneer probably on his face.

"His going through a hard time with his mutation," was all I heard Charles say before the elevator door close.

My room was the furthest from the stairs and elevator, but without shoes on, it was only a few seconds run. Shoes weren't a necessity anymore, anyone could see my mutation no matter what I did.

My heart not even rising beat from the run to my room, I climbed into my bed and laid down, trying not to think of anything.

**I hope you liked it!**

**I can't wait to write the next chapter. It's the weekend AHHHH!**

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	8. Chapter 6

**Ch 6**

**SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG! Stupid school… I have to do **_**work!**_** Like, what's with that? I'm like the definition of the lazy song, save for I'm a girl… **

**Anyway…**

***Hank***

The sun was what woke me up that morning. I hadn't closed my shades the night before, though I rarely did as I was an early riser. My first thought was to get up and ready for class or else I would be late.

Then it all crashed back, in one big title wave. The Beast had taken me last night, right in front of Alex. The Beast had hurt Alex.

Guilt, shame, and regret all washed over me at once. I tightening feeling in my chest formed. It hurt to breath. Jubilee had seen too.

She would hate me… Forever

The thought sent shutter down my spine, one of my only friends, lost. The Beast would take her from my life as well.

I couldn't stay. I could never look Charles in the eye again, I would never be the same in his eyes. I had let the Beast get the best of me and now Alex and Jubilee were both injured.

No one would ever forget, life would never go on.

No one trusted me as is, not with my fur and looks. I portrayed a predator and at some times I was.

The pain racked over me again and again. Numbness never came. After about a half hour of this I finally managed to push some of the pain away.

I pushed enough away to look presentable. I had already felt Charles probe my mind in the first ten minutes of my wakening, but I had already shut my mind down from him. He would understand, hopefully.

I quickly dressed and went to my classroom. I sat down and waited for the class.

The first of many miserable months were ahead.

*Jubilee*

I had practically watched Hank fall apart. I remember that first class I had of his after I had come back from my collapse.

I was one of the only kids in a class of fifteen.

One other girl showed up. Her name I forgot, but we seemed to be the only two in the class that still trusted Hank.

His face fell when he realized no one else was coming to the class.

It tool weeks to get the class back together, mainly Charles help, for most of the students didn't want to be in the same room as Hank.

No one understood why I trusted him so much after _what he did to me. _ Or so that's what everyone said.

He didn't do anything, well nothing bad. He saved me really, although in the process he also hurt me, but there was only good intention.

Hank never came out of his classroom and labs. He only left to sleep in his dorm, which had been moved to the same floor as his classroom. I don't know how he got food, he must go in the night or something, but he had something to eat.

I watched in class as kids mocked and ridiculed him, and at first I stood up for him, but as time past what they were saying about him was true.

He was always alone and by himself. He had no friends and Prof Xavier only put up with him because of their shared past.

They other students knew I couldn't deny the truth in their words, so I didn't. Hank didn't seem to take much notice.

He always stayed at the front or the back of his classroom, never walking though it to look at students work anymore.

He didn't seem to want to talk to me after class, so I didn't bother him. He always seemed to be thinking, though I had no idea what about.

Alex and Sean never seem to come to talk to him either, hopefully Prof Xavier did, though I didn't watch Hank enough to know.

It pained me to just walk out of Hank's class without a second glance, but I could dwindle on the past, anyway I had training next, and I was sure to get killed, again.

*Hank*

Jubilee never wanted to talk to me anymore, she seemed embarrassed of me, though I can understand why.

I was the symbol of shame at the school here, most people didn't trust me or straight out just didn't like me and the students that didn't, only pitied me.

Charles had gotten a math teacher, so now I only taught science, my favorite subject, though no one was as ahead as I was at their age.

The teacher, Amara or Magma, is a small blond who came from Nova Rome, a small country with origins of Rome. She is immune to magma and from what I've tested has a higher energy level when in contact with the earth. I see her around and we often speak in Latin together. I don't know much else about her, but she seems nice enough, though she is only 20.

She told me she discovered her mutation when she fell into a volcano in Nova Rome, she said the town around the volcano praised her after that, and she became a god to them, she said she hated it, though I don't know why, I would only hope to be treated like a god.

I looked out the window in the class to see this weeks water balloon fight starting, it didn't seem to be any better then last weeks, and if I could, I might have gone out there, but I was unwanted and untrusted, so there was no point in making a big deal of it.

*Amara*

I think Hank could always see the pity in my eyes when I talked to him. I did pity him, with almost no friends, I didn't even understand how that could happen. I talked to him almost everyday, always looking for a time to use my Latin, and he was the sweetest person I think I have ever met, but he still seemed to be lonely.

I felt the energy shoot through me as I dug my toes into the soft dirt. The feel of earth on my feet always brought a smile to my face. I wanted to change into my energized form, but I was afraid someone might get hurt form the heat.

No water balloon had touched me yet, though some had gotten blasted from small balls of hot magma.

The students here seemed to act more childish then most kids. I was only 20, but already I felt like some what of a mother hen to some of these kids.

I felt bad for them, most of them had no family, and the ones that did, usually had none supportive families who didn't care if they were here safe in happy or in some prison wasting away.

The water balloon fight was coming to a close, but not before I glimpsed the curtains close in Hank's classroom. He really should come out here sometime.


	9. Chapter 7

Ch7

*Charles*

I felt her mind as she ran closer to the mansion grounds. My mental feel for people didn't usually pick up on there emotions from this far, but she was in so much pain and so exhausted that I could tell she didn't have long before she would fall.

And she had someone else, another young girl that she was carrying. The girl was passed out, but I could tell that she was only about ten and the girl carrying her only about 18 or 19. She was on the front lawn now.

_Sean! Alex! Come to me quick. I'm at the front door, move! _ I mentally sent that thought to them and then quickly wheeled myself to the front door and wrenched it open. The front lights were on, but I couldn't see farther then ten feet.

_Help,_ came a faint mental cry. The girl didn't have much time. _Keep walking. You are so close dear. Come to the light._ I sent back in a soothing voice trying to get her closer.

A noise came from behind and I felt both Sean and Alex crash through the door. Not even looking back I pointed forward and whispered, "Two girls are out there. Get them, quick!"

The boys didn't have to run much to find the two girls huddled together, but the older one wouldn't let go of the little girl. She trudged forward past the two boys and came before me. She laid the girl in my lap and spoke softly, "Help her. They did something to her mentally. Please just help her." And with that she fell to her knees.

*Beast*

It wasn't unusual for Charles to get new students out of the blue, but what was, was the fact that these new students were both out cold and hurt mentally and physically.

Charles had mentally called on me as the older of the two girls passed out, the older one was odd. I had examined her as I carried her to an empty room. Her skin was a rusty red and I could only describe it as a hard snake skin, I could imagine it being on a dragon. It was odd and I wanted to take samples of it, but Charles said the younger of the two girls was badly hurt and needed medical attention.

Being the only teacher who had studied medicine, I was trusted with the young girl's life, but she would need far more then what medical technology could provide. From running several scan and getting Charles to scan her mind, we established that her wounds were mental and not physical.

Charles said that her mental being had been practically torn apart and that it would take him a long time to repair it all.

I stood over the girl, monitoring her as Charles mentally repaired her mind, ten grueling hours later, I heard a noise from outside the infirmary door.

I woke up to the feel of soft white sheets. The smell of flowers was in the air and when I looked up I saw the ceiling of a well decorated room. At first I was at peace with my surroundings, but then I remembered. It all came crashing back.

The pain filled my mind and then the fear. And with my own fear came the fear for Ororo; the little girl with no family. They had killed her family, and I feared for her.

I had given her to the man; he had called out to me, but not with his voice. I think he was the man from the file, Charles. The man that owned this place this haven, but this so called haven was also feared by the white coats. Was here this much worse then were we had come from?

Looking around I saw the door. I ran to it, expecting it to be locked I slammed my body against it as I turned the handle. I spilled out into the hallway, not caring that I had no clothes on my red body, not caring at all what they might do to me if they found out I got out of my room. Ororo, that's all that mattered at the moment, I had to find her before they killed her.

I had asked the man for help, but now that I think about it, what was to stop him from hurting her or worse killing her? I had to find her. My mind was a blaze with ideas and theories as to where she might be. I just kept running down hallway after hallway, but still I found no one. I ran down stair cases too, but no one seemed to be here. I finally came upon a large square metal door.

I quickly turned the handle and looked inside. I saw her, she was in a bed with only a sheet over her small body. I looked around the room and saw what appeared to be the back of the head of the man that I had asked to help her. And draped over Ororo was a large furry beast.

My first instinct was to leap forward and attack the beast, but I decided better, and simply knocked my hard skinned shoulder against him, to move him and drape myself over the girl. Bearing my pointed teeth like an animal, I looked into his gold eyes and dared him to try to hurt Ororo.

The intelligence in his eyes was the first thing that clued me in on that he wasn't some mindless beast. The second being the fact that he wore glasses and has a clipboard and pencil in his hand.

Not sure of what to do, I continued to glare at the beast man. For all I knew, he could have been hurting Ororo like the Whitecoats, but I had never seen a mutant work on another mutant like that, well I had but those said mutants didn't really look like mutants, not like this one did.

"Please move, I was only trying to help your friend. She seems to mentally be suffering. I must watch over her and make sure she is physically well while Charles works on her mentally. He'll explain to you later." And with that the beast pushed me to the side, like I weighed nothing, and resumed watching the different machines, that I assume he had been watching before.

"Who are you?" I said with as much poison as I could, though it was hard as the beast had just shown his superity to me with his strength.

"And why should I trust you?" He shot back, not even looking up from the machines. "The person that has just bursted into this room fully naked and almost attacked me."

"Fine," I retorted, anger evident in my voice, "Than tell me what he's doing to her. If he's hurting her, I'm going to kill him."

"Shut up child, and let him help. As you are of none."

I don't know why I was being so mean to this young girl, it may have had to do with the fact that she was being overly rude, and I hadn't slept in over twenty hours, of course I had gone longer when I was at Harvard, but I hadn't had someone's life in my hands.

The girl's black hair bounced around as the shook with anger. The red streaks in her hair seemed to become redder even, and then almost white hot, but after a minute or so the streaks turned back to the rust red and the girl slumped against the wall.

"Fine," she said quietly before closing her eyes. I had expected more of a fight from her, as she barreled in here like a beast, growling and everything, but the fire seemed to have died in her.

**SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT!**

**I had school and what not…**

**Well I hope you enjoyed… AND…**

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**Thanks for reading!**


	10. Chapter 8

Ch 8

*Charles*

"Call me Linda please," the red skinned girl answered softly as I showed her the school. "That's what the doctors called me at the center. I think it means snake in some language. I can't even consider my old name; it's too… too… I don't know. It just doesn't suit me anymore."

"It comes from the German word lint, which means serpent," I said. I now knew that the people that had held her were German, but that gave next to nothing to figure out who they were and how they knew about me, I couldn't even consider the possibility that Erik betrayed me like that, though he did have someone who could cause such mental damage like this.

"Well the classrooms are on the first floor and the dorms on the second, and work out and training in the basement and outside. Jubilee's your roommate, and I'll show you to your room," I wheeled to the elevator and as it went up and with a ding stopped on the second floor. I remember Hank insisting on installing this, I do hope he's gotten over the incident, his been in such a state of distress as of late.

I pushed the door open to Linda's room. Looking in, I saw Jubilee in the corner, she seemed to be intent on reading, but I could tell she was wathcing the all boys training class outside, from the ways her eyes darted up ever so often. I suppose it _would_ interest her, as Alex is in the class.

"Gosh Charles! Knock why don't you? For all you know I could be naked," She cried jokingly, knowing well and sure that I could mentally tell if she was naked.

"I was coming to introduce your new roommate. I know you've seemed slightly lonely," I replied with a sly smile. It was always fun being around Jubilee.

"Really? Are you being serous? I told you under no circumstance that I wanted a roommate! I like my privacy and whatnot." I could tell she was joking, but I could mentally sense that she also didn't really want a roommate. I do hope she would come to like having another girl around, they could maybe do, like girl things.

"Oh I'm sure you'll love Linda," and I did mean that, as I wheeled myself into the room more so that Linda could step into view.

"Oh you're that girl that came in last night! I could hug you; you helped cancel my English and science class!" Jubilee didn't even realize how blunt and semi impolite she was being. With Linda's red skin, most wouldn't even notice her face flushing, but I mentally felt her embarrassment and fear of rejection.

"Um… ya that's me," Jubilee said quietly. She looked down at her bare feet and tried as hard as possible to keep a polite face on. It was hard watching her try to contain her tears.

"Well, Linda, I'll get some toiletries for you when we go shopping for clothes for you. For Jubilee **will** lend you her surplus amount of clothes. And if you'll come with me, I'll show you to the kitchen so you can get something to eat."

Charles, the man in the wheelchair that seemed to be helping Ororo, had given me overly large clothes that seemed to be old pjs. They were better then nothing, but my skin felt so weird being covered, my skin hadn't been covered since when it was mutated to the red form it was in at the moment.

Trying to be nice I quietly at the apple Charles gave me and gratefully drank the glass of water. Not wanting to be demanding, I decided not to ask Charles.

Charles gave me a funny look when continued to stay silent and eat the apple. I felt my face heat up, though I knew no one would be able to see it. I looked down at the bright red apple in my hand. I could see my sharp canine teeth mark, Ororo had once told me it reminded her of the teeth on snakes. I didn't know anything about snakes, though I didn't think they had teeth, I think they were called fangs or something.

"Please tell me dear, I can tell something is one your mind and keeping you silent," the young man said gently looking me in the eye as I dared to look up for a second. Turning my head and body, I ran my hands along the counter and finally let out a breath that I had been holding for far too long.

"I want to room with the girl. The one I brought here, Ororo. I feel responsible for her," I said softly still not looking up. I doubted he would care what I wanted.

"I would normally allow this, but you and Ororo will have very different schedules. She is younger then you and her classes will be later and she won't have training on Saturday mornings. I'm sorry, but I can arrange for her to be in the conjoined room to yours and Jubilee's room. You'll share a bathroom with her, and probably see her more then you would have ever wanted to."

"Thank you professor, thank you for being so nice and so giving."

*Jubilee*

"So are you like half snake or something?" I asked looking at the girl's skin. It was a rusty red and was scaled and looked hard, kind of like a dragon's skin. Her eyes were garnet red and rust red streaks were tangled into her black curly hair.

When she smiled at me, I could see her two sharp canine teeth that I could only describe as _fangs_. She shrugged her shoulder and shook her hear.

"I don't really know. It didn't happen till the Whitecoats took me."

"Who are the Whitecoats and do you mean they _took_ you?"

"Well they took me to like their center for mutants or something like that. It's a long story," the anguish and agony was evident in her voice as she sighed and looked out the window of our now shared room.

Following her gaze, I looked out onto the back lawn to see a two or three of the older mutants walking across the bench near the lake.

"Crap," I swore pushing my feet into my tennis shoes on the ground, "I gotta go to the training, Charles said that you won't be joining us for a while, he's gonna like evaluate you and just kinda get a feel for your mutation and whatnot. You gotta tell me about it later, I'm really sorry." Linda looked slightly relieved at the thought of not having to tell me about her story, but I would have to get the story out of her.

Running down the stairs, I sprinted onto the lawn as Claire and Heather Cameron started to stretch and get ready for training. Alex was supposed to join us, as he was the instructor of hand to hand combat, but some days he just wouldn't show.

Heather was only about 18, making her only three years older then me. She was quiet and seemed to be the complete opposite of me. She had the ability to change her appearance or body so that it would protect her or those around her.

At the moment it was in a golden hard skinned formed, the way it was when she came. In my opinion it was a crappy mutation, cause she didn't really seem to be able to control or command it on will. Charles has been trying to come up with ways to try to trigger her mutation, but none of them have worked yet.

"Jubilee! You were almost late," Claire said bossingly, I didn't really care what she thought of me, but I thought she was a down right bitch. Only Charles seemed to like her and put up with her.

"Ya well I got a new roommate, while you were dwindling your fingers."

"You should still be here on time, this is a class that you are required to take, so you must show up to the class **on time!**"

"Can you shut up and just get on with the class?" I could tell Claire was about to fire a snide retort right back at me, but Heather interrupted as usual.

"Both of you stop fighting, lets start class." I don't think Heather really enjoyed class, as it consisted of her showing us her mutation basically failed and sucked, but I think she liked class more then she liked listening to us fight.

"Today we will be working on Jubilee's mutation. Heather, I want you to stand on the other side of the lawn and Jubilee I want you to send your fireballs at Heather. This time try to control them the whole way." Claire didn't seem happy with me being the center of attention for this class, but she had to follow what Charles set out for her to do. Some days he would even come out and check when he didn't have training classes with the younger mutants.

Heather raced off to the other side of the lawn and yelled back at us once we stopped. The sun was just setting in the distance behind Heather and she looked so… the only word I can think of is magnificent. The sun reflected off her golden skin and she seemed to glow.

"Are you going to start? I asked you to aim your fireballs and control them as you send them at Heather if you have **already** forgotten," Claire needed to shut her mouth as only crap could spew out of it.

"I haven't forgotten," I said loudly and under my breath whispered bitch.

I felt the fireball at the tip of my finger before I could even see it. My finger glowed and seemed shimmer like a fire before I fireball emerged. I felt it as though it was a part of my body, I could feel the heat coming off of it, but it didn't burn me like a heated flame. I felt it as I sent it flying through the air, the whole time making sure to keep a slight mental grip on it so it wouldn't fly off course.

I saw as it zoomed closer and closer to Heather and then as it was feet away, I sent it hurtling at her and cut off all mental links I had to it. This time I didn't have to mentally feel as it crashed and burned.

I had been stupid enough in the past not to cut off my mental link to the fireballs, and lets just say it hurt too much to be worth it. Charles had helped me find a way to cut off my mental link after I asked him about it.

"Do it again," Claire commanded like she was the queen or something. I rolled my eyes and felt the tingle of another fireball in my fingers.

I watched out my new window as my roommate shot fireballs from her fingertips. Jubilee did seem a bit mean, but I had no reason to judge her and hadn't even gotten to know her yet.

I swished the light brown curtains closed and looked down at my own red palms. If you looked hard enough, you could almost make out the slightly darker red labyrinth of designs and scars.

That brought back the thought of today. I had started to feel the heat and tingle of power when I didn't control my anger at the blue man. I had almost lost control, but he didn't seem to even notice that much.

I would have to figure him out soon, and see if he was one to trust. Charles seemed all right, but I was afraid he knew too many people and would hear rumors and lies, although he may hear the truth and be equally as afraid, Jubilee wasn't to be trusted so far all I had seen of her was her big mouth. And I don't mean it in a bad way, its just she can't seem to stop talking.

This was suppose to be easier then the Whitecoats, but at least I had them figured out.

**DUN DUN DUUUN  
>Sorry for the cliffy, and it prob won't even be fulfilled for a while, so stay in there you readers! <strong>

**And want to thank those few people that have reviewed!**

**They set a fab example for the rest of you all to follow…**

**As in… REVIEW! **

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**I really hope you like this and I need some ideas for Claire so please give me any ideas you have because right now she is a blank canvas. **

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**Carry **


	11. Chapter 9

Ch 9

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the darkness in the room. It was pitch black and the room smelled like hospitals and medicine, all the things I had grown up in. I thought I had escaped it, the smell and rank, but the up was it didn't seem that chains held me down like with the whitecoats.

I heard a loud crash from another room and I felt my heart speed up. The pounding in my head was almost too much to bear and I heard a beeping sound from somewhere, it seemed to speed up along with my heart.

Sweat dampened the skin on my hands and forehead. Another crash followed the first and I jumped up off the hard bed I had been lying on. The bed was light enough that it shifted across the floor with my bounce off of it. I heard a creak come from the bed as I crouched down behind it.

The crashes and noises seemed to stop the second the bed creaked. I felt a prickle and pull in my arm and looked down to see an IV sticking from my skin. Yanking it out, I held my breath and waited for whatever was in the other room.

Something creaked from across the room and light spilled into the room. The soft yellow glow spread across the floor and went over the top of the bed I had just been laying on. I heard something clicked on the ground and looked under the bed to see what looked like blue furred bear feet walking across the room.

I balled myself up as tight as possible and tried to act invisible, though it didn't seem to work the way it always did for Jamie. She really could turn invisible. Shacking, I peaked under the bed to see the blue bear feet only a foot or so away from me, on the other side of the bed.

*Beast*

The stress of everything seemed to bring him out. The Beast was upset, and tired. Tired of this human life I insisted on living. Tired of being caged up with all these lesser beings. Tired of the world in general. But he wasn't physically tired. He was stronger than ever, as all the anger came out from him.

It took as much control as I had, yet it wasn't enough. I stopped him from yelling out and trying to run to the woods, but I couldn't stop him from leaping across my room, making sure to break everything in sight.

He tore up the sheets of my plain white bed, he ripped the wallpaper off the wall, taking some bits of wall with him. He crushed the bed frame until the whole thing lay on the ground in pieces.

The only thing that stopped him was the sound coming from the should be quiet room. He had some access to my brain, enough to know that a sound coming from the room adjacent mine was out of place. And that was my chance.

I had control almost instantly while he was distracted. He had done enough and was satisfied. He wouldn't come out again for a few days.

Looking around at the mess he had created, I almost forgot what had stopped him. I sound, a sound that came from the **should **be quiet room. I knew the young girl was in there. She may have possible woken. Ororo I believed her name was, or so the red skinned Linda told Charles.

Opening the door, I found that the room was dark, though it was no match for my animal vision. I could smell the fear rolling off the young girl in powerful waves. My feet clicked the floor as I walked to her bed.

I could see part of her under the bed; she was trembling more then anyone or anything I had ever seen. She looked like a mouse looking into an eagle's eyes, knowing it would die in the next moments.

But I was no predator, the Beast was, but he was away and tired, and wouldn't come out anytime soon. I walked around the bed to see the girl huddled in a ball.

Her long white hair almost reached her waist, though most of the ends looked dead from dehydration and malnourishment. Her large brown eyes looked apon me with terror, she was utterly afraid, but I sensed something else.

The fear in her was slowly ebbing away, replaced by some new emotion. A fire seemed to spark in her eyes as the seconds ticked by, she stopped shaking and stood up. Her arms at her sides, curled into small fists, her eyes pierced mine as they changed from the soft brown to a glowing white.

Her hand slapped the side of my face before I had time to react. I had just enough time to leap back as her foot came up to swish past the air my face had just been in. I looked at the girl from the position I stood in a few yards back now.

I was wrong in thinking of her as a little girl, she may seem ten or eleven, but I could tell the intense training she had been through. Her mind didn't even seem to register what she was doing, she was just doing.

Her fist came up this time, and I was ready. I grabbed it, a split second before it would have made contact with my face. I had planed it out just right so that she was using her full momentum, also making her at her full velocity, which made it a little bit harder for me to stop her, but with her full momentum I could catch her body as it crumbled into mine, not expecting to be stopped.

The wind was knocked out of her and she was gasping for breath. I held her tight so she couldn't get away or try to harm me again. I looked down into her face and saw her eyes start to eerily glow again, when she pushed her hand into my arm, I felt an intense shock, like I couldn't control my arm, it was shaking and flopping around and all I could feel was numbness

She slowly pulled her hand away, and I saw the electric current running through it into my skin. I yelped, but made sure to keep a good grip on her. I pulled her hand away and held both of them behind her back.

_Ororo _

The shaking stopped the second I thought of my tribe leader. He had hand picked me and trained me in everything he thought I could master. I remember the countless hours of intense combat training.

All those memories flashed before my eyes as I looked at the blue beast in the lab coat. He didn't seem at all ready for me, in fact it looked like he was underestimating me… much to my advantage.

My body took over then, I didn't remember wanting to stand up or even trying to stand up, but the next thing I knew I was up. I felt my muscles bunch up under me as they readied themselves to attack.

I don't remember having control over any part of me then. My hand had made contact with his face and then my foot was flying up, trying to hurt him further. He leaped back, with what I can only describe as an animals instinct, of course there was obousily some animal in him.

My fist came next, but before I had even made the swing, I knew he was ready. Whatever animal was in him, had good reaction time and there seemed to be intelligence that calculated my every move.

He stopped me an inch away from his face, and did it so that my whole body fell into his, from being thrown off balance. I felt the power surge through me as I took a breath and tasted the air.

I still had little control over the instinct that had kicked in, I felt the electricity serge through me as I took it from the surrounding air particles. I felt it flow through my hand and into his arm.

My hand slowly pulled away, and only when I heard a yelp and looked down to see the electricity did I gain control. Tears streamed down my face as I realized what I had done, the beast had my hands behind my back, holding me tight and not letting go.

"I'm sorry," the words whispered out of my mouth of their own accord. I didn't even expect him to hear them, but he let me go then and turned me around to look in my face.

I looked at the ground; I couldn't bring myself to look into his face. He may be part animal, but he was still part human. What I had done was wrong. If he was like me, then maybe he understood me. I had been too quick to judge. He wouldn't help me now.

"Let's go upstairs and get some tea," was all he said before taking my small hand in his and leading me out a door.

Once out of the room, I looked to see that we appeared to be in a house. A large house from the looks of is.

"Where are we?"

"A haven," the beast said in his ruff voice. Two words followed that, though I don't think I was meant to hear. _For some_. Even though the words were soft and not meant for my ears, I could still hear the anger and bitterness in his voice.

**Sorry it took so long. I had school and football and swimmer. We went to state, on a little bus cause all the normal buses were being used for football, which is so stupid because the field is five minutes away from our school. **

**I learned at the state meet, that all boys cuss when they play video games, and when they cuss they CUSS. But whatever, my mental image of them will never be the some… **

**So enough about me how bout u?**

**Did you like the chapter, I know it tool forever, and I will be forever sorry… maybe… prob not **

**So like review, cause people who review are cool…**

**And I want to ask if anyone has any type of fujitsu product, I was looking at a computer that I wanted, but I want to know if it's a reliable brand.**

**So review and fujitsu!**

**XOXOXOX**

**-C**


	12. Chapter 10

*Linda*

When I went down for breakfast the next morning, I found the blue man in the doorway saying something to the person inside. I was about to ask him to move when he turned around.

"How did you do that?" I asked, accusation clear in my voice, I wasn't ready for another mind reader. I had had enough fear with Charles being able to see in my head, but if there's two, then that's just too much.

"I heard you walk over here, the wood floor doesn't muffle your footstep." He said in a dull voice, and then a smile appeared on his face as he moved over to let me in the kitchen that Charles had pointed out yesterday.

A small dark skinned girl dressed in a simple white nightgown sat at the counter, drinking milk and eating pancakes.

"ORORO!" I yelled louder then meaning to, but not caring at all.

Rushing over to the white haired girl, I wrapped her in a hug, and smiled into her hair as I held her. She seemed so small and fragile, like she would break any moment and needed full protection. Pushing her back to arms length, I examined her, and found that she looked much healthier and happier then the way I had left her.

Smiling she clamped her hand over mine and led me to a seat.

"Oh Linda!" she said, looking down at her hands as they folded in her lap. "Its just wonderful here!"

Smiling back at her I nodded, though in my head, came all the images of things that weren't so wonderful, all the things from the labs and whitecoats. And for all Ororo and I knew, those same things could be here as well.

Ororo

The days that followed my run in with Hank were anything but boring. I was given a room next door to Linda's which was fantastic and all but I wish I could have been in there with her. My roommate was nice and meant well, but I went to Linda's room more times then not.

Charles came to see me after I hand finished breakfast, he gave me a run through of all the things the school does and why he built it and blah blah blah. I was more interested in the classes like training, Linda told me she wanted to start a gymnastics class but didn't know who to speak with, I could also hear the underlining fear in her voice, she didn't want to talk to anyone, she didn't want attention drawn to her.

I was put in a training class with Hank and Charles, many of the younger students were either amazed or fearful of him, though I couldn't understand the later. Hank always appeared so nice and sympathetic, but the a girl by the name of Brandy told me differently, she said he would often had rages and that he'd hurt people. I didn't really trust Brandy, for she often talked trash to me about the two other younger mutants who were twins, Jane and Jack and who were the only other kids in our training class.

I controlled the weather around me so that it started raining just on a spot inches from where I stood, and followed it by the wind pick up so that my hair softly flapped around my face, then I picked it up to a screeching speed and pressure until I almost fell over, then I slowly let it die down.

My mutation appeared to please Charles and even seemed to amaze Hank, though I don't know why, sure it was cool to control the weather, but I couldn't really do anything with that, he on the other hand, was like a super cool blue dude, but I was just happy my mutation pleased him.

Brandy could bend and stretch her body like a rubber band, though I didn't find it that cool as she only tried to do it so that her boobs looked bigger or she looked at ease and better then all of us, which was far from true.

Jane and Jack were slightly hesitant in showing their mutation to someone new, but with a smile from me and a large amount of snide comments from Brandy, they eventually showed me. Jane who looked like the female version of Jack, could teleport, she said it was easiest to do if you were off the ground and in motion, I though she would just jump in the air, but boy was I wrong.

She did two back handsprings and twisted around in mid air right before she disappeared, then appeared ten feet higher and started to fall to the ground right before she disappeared and appeared again right behind Brandy, causing her to flinch and pitch forward onto her hands and knees.

I already liked Jane, it was Jack's turn next and he disappeared as Brandy did, but much more slowly and unlike Jane, he didn't reappear, it took me a second to realize that he had turned invisible. I thought that was one of the best super powers ever, but it also scared me, he could be anywhere doing anything. Like getting ready to kick me or push me over.

I looked at the dusty ground where Jack had just stood and an idea popped into my brain, not really a stupid idea, but and idea that could easily fail or succeed, making it easy for it to make me look stupid.

I kicked some dirt on the ground and had a gust of wind pick it up into the air, letting the wind rush around in a funnel, carrying more and more dirt with it until I had a mini tornado. I let the foot high tornado sweep through the ground around us until it collided with thin air. No one could see the coalition, but I felt it in my head and quickly made it start raining over the tornado. The dirt quickly turned to mud which seemed to stick in thin air, and slowly a boys legs appeared under the mud.

Jack had mud caked to the bottom of his jeans and though I expected an angry look at the dirty jeans, he looked up and smiled. In the next moment the mud on his jeans seemed to fall right through him.

At my bewildered look, Charles explained.

"Jack can not only turn invisible, but can also decrease his density to zero, so that he can walk right through solid objects or as you just saw have things fall right through him. "

Jack smiled again before disappearing.

"FINALLY!" Brandy exclaimed from next to me, she started to walk to the school and I took Jacks departure as a signal that class was over.

Jane came up to me and tool my arm, leading me to the school.

"I'll show you all the cool places at the school, is it ok if I teleport us?"

With a nod of my head, I felt like I was being jerked out of my body, and felt like my stomach had dropped to my feet. Clutching Jane's hand as we appeared to be in total darkness and as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, which meant I felt gravity again, which of course equaled me crashing to my knees on soft carpeted floor.


	13. Chapter 11

*Ororo*

The room Jane and I had appeared in, was padded from the floor on up. The padding was a dark green on the ground and white on the walls in the ceiling, at first I thought it was soft carpet, but it seemed that it was some kind of padding for training, or so I assumed as punching bags and dummy's were pushed in the corners of the room.

"Its usually locked," Jane said looking at the closed door on the far wall from us, it was padded as well, but a deep brown outline showed were the door was. "The training room, I mean, that's where we are right now, but of course I have easy access to it. I think Charles just doesn't want some of the boys coming in here and hurting each other, so we shouldn't get in trouble, but I wouldn't go breaking things, course there isn't much to break," Jane said with a wry smile.

"So why did you take me here?" I wondered why she would take me somewhere that was seemingly off limits to most.

"Well you showed us a great deal of your mutation out there, and I thought I should repay you. Its not every day someone with your confidence comes here and will blatantly show their gift. I wasn't able to show you my full mutation out there in the open, I need walls and corners." At my confused expression, she help up her finger, indicating to wait, and went to the center of the room.

I watched as she tensed her muscles, and sprung into the air, doing a flip in mid air, she disappeared, only to reappear in a corner on the opposite wall of where I sat. Her arms and legs extended in a way making it easy for her to wedge herself in the corner. She smiled and stuck her tongue out before she pushed off the wall in a dive, only to flip twice in the air and land lightly on her feet.

I was amazed, never had I seen someone with that skill. Linda had been trained, but she never wanted it to do it openly, for it caused it caused her to use her mutation, but I don't think she had this skill, or it came at this much ease, Linda wasn't born to flip like that, but Jane was.

At my awe struck face, she smiled and said, "I can show you a few tricks as well."

*Linda*

Hank, the blue beast, said that Ororo had to do some training, but when I looked out the window, I only saw Charles and Hank walking in alone. They were silent, yet I saw traces of smiles on their faces.

Running from my room, I felt almost like I was flying down the stairs, and my bare feet padded against the aged wood. I looked around the bottom of the stair case before going to the left, which led to the back door and garden.

The back door had just creaked closed when I hurried in, only to find Hank turning from the door. He had a smile on his face but at the sight of me, it seemed to vanish.

"Where's Ororo?" I said with a little more contempt and accusation that I meant to use.

"With a friend," he said equally snidely as he looked me over in my shorts and tank top. "And isn't it a little cold to be wearing those clothes?"

"I don't get cold," I fired back as I turned to leave.

"You don't?" Curiosity evident in his voice, I silently cursed myself for saying anything.

"No, not since I- Not for a while," catching myself, I hurried out the door, hoping he wouldn't try to follow me and ask more questions.

Much to my luck, I could hear his feet and toes clicking on the floor as he followed me to the kitchen, rushing around to face him, I looked at him with a look of disgust.

"Will you stop following me? I don't know you! Its not my fault you like everyone's mutation but your own!" I could see the pain written across his face and instantly regretted saying anything, but the pain quickly turned to anger.

"Don't even try to understand things you can't even begin to comprehend," he snarled at me, flashing his beast like teeth. And that just pissed me off, he wasn't my superior, and he was nowhere near better then me.

"What I don't understand?" I snarled back, flashing my sharpened teeth as well. "I've seen things you can't even imagine, who do you think you are?" I shudder went through me as flashes of the labs came back, flashes of pain and hurt, blood and tears.

Staggering back, I pressed me hand against the wall and slid down to the floor. I was assaulted with memories of my past. The pain as ever cell of my body seemed to burn and die one by one, the tears that rushed down my face as the memory of them as they forced me to use my mutation again and again.

I felt hot tears roll down my cheeks and didn't even bother to wipe them away. Running my hands through my thick black hair, I noticed how some strands in them started to change color to light red, and yet I didn't care, there was no more trying to hid the monster I was, what I had done and what had been done to me.


	14. Chapter 12

**PLEASE READ! Very important:**

**If you read a chapter that began like this and had Claire coming from the future, KNOW IT IS WRONG! I have changed it to were Claire can't time travel, so please realize this.**

"So your saying you can't read her mind at all?" Claire asked with annoyance clear in her voice.

"No, what I'm saying is I can see the outer layer of her thoughts, but her mind is even more mentally battered then Ororo, her mind itself has put up its own defenses, and I believe with out her knowledge. I can see the mental scars of the many times someone tore through her mind, its like a battle field, full of land minds every few steps, I don't think I can even precede further into her mind, it would be a great risk if I did."

"Then I think she's a great risk," Claire finally said after a few minutes of silence.

"But she is also hurt and broken, and I can't just leave her."

"I've told you Charles! There's something off about her! Her coloring isn't fully gold, there's a dark tent to them, like there something else, and the gold is bright, and if what your saying is true that there is more to her mutation then just this, then I can't imagine what it looks like when she uses this second mutation. She could harm us, she could harm us all, maybe even kill us. Come to your senses, you need to find out more about her or she needs to leave. " Claire was only a dull throb to the rest of the headache I had, I had to find at least two more teachers, and needed to find a way to stop Jane from teleporting into ever room. I had too much to do, and I also needed to talk with the teachers I did have. Hank seemed better, and Kelly and Amara needed some more leading and myself needed a break.

"Claire please, I don't need this right now. I have too much to worry about, if you wanted to help you would become a teacher like I asked. I need more help and more time, don't pester me now," I tried to keep as much annoyance out of my voice as possible, but I didn't seem to succeed.

"Fine Charles! FINE! I am only trying to help, don't blow up at me! I'll be a teacher! Happy? I'll be the English teacher, so you can go off and do whatever the crap you want to do."

"Thank you Claire," I knew if I tried to say more, I would only upset Claire further.

"But you still need to find out about Linda. You said yourself Linda isn't her real name, do you even know her age? Of you can't see that far into her mind, then how can we trust her?"

"I know I need to find out more about her, but I have more pressing matters. I have to make sure that the other girl, Ororo is well too.

"Fine okay, whatever." I knew Claire eyes were rolled her eyes without even looking at her. Again her back was to me, so as she wouldn't have to see the gold dust that glowed so bright, today, though she was facing the rest of the house, instead of the yard.

"I know you are trying to help, but sometimes I must take risks to help others," I said simply looking into her bright eyes. She could be so so simpleminded for such an intelligent person.

"STOP TRYING TO PLAY THE HERO! YOU CAN'T SAVE EVERYONE!" I had waited for her outburst since our conversation started, but it still didn't stop the sting that came with her words.

Almost a whisper, I softly said, "You of all people know I can't save everyone." I meant to wheel myself out then and end the discussion, but as I finished speaking, I felt the pain and power of one of the children in the school.

I also heard Claire gasp behind me, I looked back to see her closing her eyes and shack her head back and forth like a small child trying to get ride of a horrible image.

Then a strange sensation came over me. It was an odd sensation, for I had never felt such raw power come from a being before, and I knew who it was. Linda was finally using her full mutation, I knew she had been keeping something from us, but this, this was too much.

Doubling over I looked at my shoes as the pain that had come with her power came over me. She was reliving everything, ever harsh moment of her life, and their seemed to be many.

I distantly heard and felt Claire as she yelled out and pain and screamed about going blind, I tried to lift my head to look at her and calm her, but the power coming of the young mutant took my full attention and focus.

I wheeled myself to the door, and for once was glad that I decided to live on the first floor. I wheeled past the kitchen and to the back of the house as fast as my wheelchair would take me and then I came upon them.

Beast stood over Linda, but I could tell he meant her no harm, he didn't seem to even realize that her mutation was starting. Linda was huddled in a small ball on the floor, I could see the red strands in her hair start to glow, and I knew it was from the power, the raw power.

Feeling her mind, I could tell that she was being assaulted by memories of her painful past and I caught flashes of some, but I needed to see it all in order to help her.

Taking a deep breath , I tried to calm my mind as I prepaired to venture into Linda's mind. It was a huge risk and could be my end, but if I did nothing, we might all die from the power.

And as I felt the serenity of my mind, I dove into her mind, and it felt like I was diving into a bath of ice water.

*Hank*

The girl, Linda, didn't seem to be the air headed girl I had first thought she was, she seemed so much more wise yet this seemed to make her so much more fierce, and the Beast could feel her fierceness, something deep within him longed for it. It was natural, as animals tend to stick with those who can pull their own weight and more.

But to see Linda break down like that, it was awful, she just crumbled up and started crying, like all life had been sucked from her, I had never seen someone cry like that, with so much pain and sorrow, my respect for her only went up, she wouldn't want me to pity her, like I didn't want anyone to pity me, but she needed someone or something that could keep her grounded to keep her here. And I didn't know at all what that was.

I didn't realize Charles was in the room until he took a sharp breath. Glancing over in alarm, I saw that he has wheeled himself over and by the distant look in his face was using his mutation to get into someone's mind, most likely Linda's.

Behind him, Claire trotted up, red faced and hair disheveled, her hands covered her eyes. She seemed to have run here form Charles study. When she looked to see Charles in a mental war, she looked at me and started blabbering none sense, but I noticed that she had clamped her hands back over eyes right after the looked up at Charles.

"Claire? Calm down, please. Claire! CLAIRE!" Only when I took her hand, did she jerk away and seem to come back to herself. She didn't like me to begin with, but added my beastly look, and she basically hated me or feared me, though I was leading to the first. And she didn't seem that she wanted me to mover her hands.

Finally she turned back to me, or a place next to me as she wasn't looking, and with contempt in her voice, asked, "How could you let Charles do this?" Like this was all my fault. She reminded me of when my mother tried to take on a parental role. Claire made me so mad sometimes, but I couldn't let that get in the way, I had to help Charles and Linda. I had seen first hand the pain on her face. She had seen too much and I think she was finally breaking, and I think Charles was trying to fix her, per say, though I had no idea how to fix a person.

"She's hurt and broken," I said softly as I crouched down next to Linda. The red strands in her hair that for a second seemed to change colors, were back to their normal red, and I saw the distant look on her face that matched Charles', though hers looked more pained, were as Charles just looked sorrow filled, yet determined.

"Hurt and broken my ass," I heard Claire scoff before turning away to head to the kitchen, and that just pissed me off. From one messed up kid to another, I understood some what of what Linda must feel, and you know us messed up kids got to stick up for each other or whatever.

"At least she's not a bitch like you," I called to Claire's retreating form, if she heard me, she didn't seem to care, or maybe she had been called that so many times that she didn't seem to care one way or another.

*Charles*

I finally found Linda in her mind. She was watching herself, it was a memory, and she was watching as lab coated men stuck needles into her skin. She was strapped down to a metal table with wheels on the bottom and her thick black hair looked unhealthy and didn't have its red streaks in it.

The needles were full of a dark red liquid that was as thick as molasses and i saw Linda cringe as the needles were inserted into all her major body parts and I saw the look of pain as the new liquid coursed through her body.

Linda screamed in pure pain and started thrashing as much as she could against her restraints.

"It felt like I was on fire," the Linda observing the memory stated without looking at me. No emotions were on her face and couldn't tell at all what she was thinking.

The men pushed the metal table to a huge metal door and pushed her in it. The door closed with a snap and the small window on the door revealed Linda still moving and thrashing on the table.

The men went to a set of buttons on the wall next to the door and typed something in. All of a sudden a red light came from the small room and some how Linda managed to scream even louder, she started to glow like a pale light was in her.

"Those were my last moments as Serena," Linda whispered, "I was screaming the whole time, and it felt like ever cell in my body was being destroyed. Though come to find out, that was what basically happened. They changed ever cell in my body and used a different mutation and infused it with mine and with ever cell in my body."

As Linda spoke, red creeped through her body, her skin changing before my eyes into the red it was now. I watched in horror as the pale light flashed bright red before slowly turning back to white.

"Come back to the mansion with me," I said speaking for the first time, "You're welcome here, please no one intends to her hurt you, I only want to help you.

**SO sorry for the long wait, I've been fixing up the chapters and have gone through and edited them again, save for chapter three, for some reason it won't let me load the chapter, so we'll have to live with it as is for now. **

**So please review guys, I love the four of yall that have review, it means so much to me! **

**And… I would like to but my opinion about the Football Championship Game with Collage, NBS I think its called, idk I don't know much football, but… LSU WILL BEAT BAMAS ASS! And I'm not usually into football and rarely take sides, but this year has brought in new things for me… like the fact that I'm getting into football (really I'm started to scare myself, but whatever) **

**So please review and all that Jazz!**


	15. Chapter 13

**This is going to be a bit confusing. So get ready for epicness!**

"Please dear, we both know it would be a bad idea for me to try to go through your mind again, so please just tell me from the beginning. I know it will be hard, but you'll be able to help all the other mutants that were held captive," Charles spoke kindly but I could see he died to know the information I held. And I would have liked to help the other mutants I really did, but Charles didn't know the truth, at least not yet. It was high time I told him my story and how the sudden appearance came about.

*Charles*

I saw the decision in Linda's fiery red eyes and felt it in her complex mind before she spoke.

"It began years ago, really," She spoke softly looking anywhere but at me, she continued wryly, "But I guess you want to know when I was taken. I'm a horrible excuse for a human," As my mouth flew open to protest, she held out her hand, still not looking at, "I am, any murderer should not be considered a human, they found me after I killed my mother," Linda spoke all this with little emotion, though I could see a change in her strong mind, very small, yet ever present.

*Linda*

"They found me after I killed my mother," it hurt to even say, but I didn't let the pain bleed through into my voice or face. I made sure Charles thought that I was over it, but really I don't think I could ever get over it.

I remember the night it happened. I was visiting my mom in the hospital right after Dad had died. She was awake, and very confused. The nurses were about to sedate her when I came in, but when she saw me she calmed down.

I walked over to her and took her hand and started crying, because she didn't remember, she didn't remember anything. Nothing about her husband or me, I just looked familiar to her. She was acting primal and animal like, she was reverting back to her first stages in life as a way of coping with her loss.

She held my hand as I kneeled next her bed and wept, but she didn't know why I was crying, and she looked on me with pity, not recognizing her own daughter. I looked at her through my tearful eyes and saw that she was saddened by my tears and had some amount of pity for me, but she couldn't force herself to show the motherly kindness that she didn't posses.

And that's all it took.

Finally speaking,

"I wasn't angry with her at all.

I wasn't trying to lash out.

I wasn't trying to hurt her."

Taking a deep breath,

"I wanted my mom.

The one who cared for.

I wanted the mom that loved me.

I wanted the mom who could recognize her own daughter!"

I glanced at Charles, and realized he didn't know the whole story and there for wouldn't understand what I was talking about, but I couldn't tell him. I could never tell anyone.

Reverting back to my emotionless tone and face, I continued, "My mutation took me over, I meant my mother no harm, but when it took over I had no control. I remember feeling the power course through me. It was painful, but in an almost good way. The feeling could have easily gone to someone else's head, but I didn't want the power. I just wanted my mom," But really that wasn't what I wanted, I wanted someone who would love and care for me, but a mother was the best representation of that, and I had no one near like that in my life.

*Charles*

"I just wanted my mom," I could feel the pain coming from her mind, even though her face and voice portrayed nothing. However twisted and complicated Linda's mind was, I could feel the overriding pain and sorrow coming from it.

She was worried so much, that I would hate her. That I would hate for something she couldn't even control, how could she ever thing so poorly of me, that I would judge her for letting her power get the better of her.

"Linda, is this really what's got you so upset? I know its hard to loose a loved one, but you must understand that you are not a bad person for what you did. You couldn't control it," I spoke with a gentle earnest that I hope Linda would see hope in, but when she turned to quickly glance at me, I saw the look it in her eyes. Pain and self hatred.

She laughed, a cackling humorless laugh, still looking anywhere but at me, and spoke with more emotion then I had ever heard in her voice, "You think that's it? That's only the beginning. Listen to my story and we shall see if by the end you still have the same respect for me."

*Linda*

I couldn't even believe Charles was so naïve to think that that was the worst I had done. I thought he had gone through war. He should understand and should have know that one simple death wasn't the cause for my self hatred. For the reason of all this pain.

He'll see, and he'll come to hate me like I hate myself. He'll come to see me as the animal I am.

"The men showed up then. There was only three at first. I had run from the hospital when the police showed up. Not even good enough to turn myself in for such a heinous crime. I just wanted to run, I was sitting on the bench in the park when they showed up. The three of them were all wearing dark clothes and had a look of authority to them, but they held an air of arrogance. I think that's what stopped me. They told me they could help, that I could trust them and come with them."

*Charles*

"They told me they could help, that I could trust them and come with them," Linda said in spite. I could see why she was so reluctant to trust me or anyone else. Why she held so many secrets.

"How'd they know where you were? Or that you were a mutant?" I was very curious about this, they may have a telepath of their own, though I would hope the mutant wouldn't work against their own kind.

"It wasn't a telepath liked you'd think, Charles," Linda said with a wry smile, still looking away from me.

"She was the first one who had escaped, or at least that's what the mutants that were there before me said. I don't know her real name, none of us went by our real names at the labs, save for Ororo, but she was a younger one. But the girl who escaped was called Goldeneye. It was said that she could see a mutation with a golden sprinkle that changed as brightened with the mutation. Some of the older inmates said there was more to her then just that, but no one ever really knew. She escaped the night they captured me."

Linda paused and this Goldeneye, she seemed so similar to girl I already knew. So so similar.

"When I didn't go with them, more men came and they took me. And for the life of me I couldn't summon the power that had killed my mother. I even save myself."

There was a long pause after this, and it looked as though Linda was sobbing, but no tears came, and when I tried to touch her arm, she only moved across the room, to the window seat, still not looking at me.

"Please continue," I said after Linda didn't say anything. Taking a breath, she went on.

**Ok so what do you think?**

**I know that was confusing with the whole back and forth between Linda and Charles, but it needed to be done from both angles and it would be boring if I did a repeat chapter from Charles' POV, so this is what you got. **

**Review please, it would help me greatly, though I'm glad to say I'm far from writers block, if waited forever to write these scenes. **

**And just so you know Hank and Serena/Linda will not realize what is right under their noses for another few chapters, so hold tight. **

**So review!**

**AND THANK YOU THOSE THAT HAVE REVIEWED! I LOVE YOU ALL RIGHT NOW!**


	16. Chapter 14

*Linda*

"When they took me, I was blind folded and my hands bound behind my back. At first I tried to map out where we were going, but I had never been outside the town before. After only a few minutes I was completely lost and after a few more I knew we were well beyond the city limits," and after those few minutes, I finally let the tears fall. The tears that wouldn't fall after I saw my mother mangled body, the tears that wouldn't fall when the grabbed me. I was all alone, I couldn't see a thing, and had no idea as to where I was going, but of course Charles didn't need to know this. There was no point in telling him of my pity party I had on the way to the labs.

"The labs, they were like nothing I had ever seen. It reminded me of the pictures of holocost camps that we saw in school. Barb wire circled the building and the building itself was a sight in itself. It hulking and huge," that building had haunted my dreams far more times then I could count, "The inside almost looked like a hospital, until you got to the basement, or dungeons as some called them. I thought of them at first as the stairway to hell," though I remembered as time passes, it became my haven, the only time I wasn't pocked and probed.

"The dungeons, were just that, there was little lighting, and it could like an old servants quarters. The rooms had different door depending on the mutation. Most of them were just plexi glass but the more… powerful mutants had sturdier doors. I was placed in a room with a glass door, and there was already a young girl in there. She had long white hair that surprised me. She was kind and told me the basics of life in the Lab. She was the one that told me about Goldeneye. I came to love her like a sister," I had said too much, let too much emotion into my voice, and I would pay for it. Charles wouldn't understand once he knew the truth about me, he wouldn't be able to see that I could care for a person.

"I learned to accept life at the labs; tests, exercises, and basically pain became my life," I stated bleakly, because really I remember little of that time, I was just trying to survive day to day never really looking ahead, and too much of a coward to look back.

"It changed the day they brought a small boy in. He was a newborn, and had been abandoned by his parents. They didn't want a mutant that was so prominent, you see he had skin like mine. But really its my skin that is like his. He died only hours after he arrived or that's what I overheard the Whitecoats saying. They sometimes forgot that we could speak the same language. After he died, he was preserved. I never found out how, and many of the lab assistants wondered over it, for they didn't know the truth either."

"They took blood then. Of all of us. Small samples, we were use to it, none of us cared either way. It was painless compared to other things we had to do."

"You say 'we', Linda. Who is 'we'? How many other mutants were there?" I had waited for the question, and I knew Charles wouldn't pass it up, but I had hoped.

"There was at least a dozen mutants, there may have been a few more, but I am unsure. Most of them were under the age of twenty, but there were a couple of the ages of 25 and 28. They were the ones I talked to about Goldeneye. They had known her best, but they still didn't know how she escaped or how to escape themselves."

"Back to the boy. His blood was tested with our bloods individually sample by sample. They finally found two that were compatible with his. One of course being mine, the other being a young boy. He was only five, and his mutation was to change the color of his body and skin. They saw more potential in me, so I was chosen." I remember them decided, the other compatible boy, Leo, was strapped to the table next to me. We listened to the whole conversation, yet the Whitecoats still though we couldn't comprehend a single word. We held our breath as they finally decided. I felt almost bittersweet, for they hadn't picked the innocent little boy next to me, but I was chosen. I remember Leo looked so happy at first then sorrow swept across his face as he looked at me. In my life I never want to see a five year old with that much sorrow.

"Linda?" I realized I had stopped talking and was thinking to myself.

"They didn't prepare me at all. They just took me to the room and injected me with the blood from the boy. If you think about it, its so shameful. To have the blood of a dead boy, who should be alive and well. You saw the rest."

"At first, I felt like I couldn't awake," and at that time I couldn't, ever time I came to consciousness something sucked me back under. Every time I worked up the will to push past the black, some grogginess pushed me under.

"When I awoke, I was in my cell, but Ororo wasn't there. At first I looked around and couldn't see anything. I thought I was dying. But then I started see the cell come into focus. Such focus. I could see in the none lighted cell, it should have been impossible, but I could. I didn't think to look at my own skin, for I didn't know at the time what the small dead baby's mutation was. I looked through the glass door to see one of the younger mutants staring at me. When I met there gaze, they cowered from me," the fear on their face was stained into my mind like almost everything else from that night. I wanted to know what struck such fear and didn't think it was myself.

"I still hadn't thought to look at myself. After about an hour, screams came from upstairs. The screams I feared to hear. They came from my cellmate. Ororo was being tested on, they had found a way to mentally break her apart. Piece by piece," the scream had stilled my blood. Making me shiver and causing a blossom of rage and hate to open up in my core.

"I ran at the door throwing myself against it and pounding my hands on it. It was then that I noticed the change in my appearance. It was a small thought at the time and I used my claw like hands to scratch at the glass. It did little damage. Finally I kicked and found that I possessed more strength then before," I remember how right as I kicked I thought I would break my leg, shatter the bone, but for some reason, my leg seemed to jump through the air faster then ever and seemed to have more power then I had ever before.

"The other mutants down in the dungeon started yelling then. Shouting for help. I didn't give them a back words glace. I was set on finding Ororo," it was selfish really, so many lives could have been saved had a stayed only a few extra minutes, but those minutes could have ended Ororo's life.

"I went up to find Ororo in one of the labs," I remembered running down the hall, nothing on at all but feeling power crackling all around me, my heart racing, and finally coming upon the room. I sprinted in and knocked the two Whitecoats to the floor. They didn't stir from where they were. I took Ororo.

"When I took Ororo, I went to the large wooden doors. We passed them almost ever time we went to the labs. They opened into the main office. Where the man behind all this madness worked. He was never a scientist, but he had the money and power to run the Lab. I went into his office to find large wooden desk. It was a work of art really, and a high back chair turned away from the door, facing a burning fire. He didn't turn around when I walked in. I left Ororo on the floor next to me with a thud. He heard it."

"He turned quickly, but I was already across the room on him, I was faster then before. I had never attacked someone like that before," I don't even remember commanding my body to do it, I was just in motion all of a sudden and then I was on him, clawing and biting," the blood was everywhere. It was all over my hands and face, I could taste the metal like test of it as it filled my mouth. I spit it out again and again as I lashed at him, not wanting to ever let his bleed be apart of me. I finally hurled him into the flames behind his desk.

"I pushed him into the flames. And went to Ororo, I must have looked like a lunitic, but when she came around she hugged me and wept. I left her on the floor and went through the leaders things. Mr. George D. Fern was a man with too much money and power. He had many different things, but one thing caught my eye," I was to tell Charles, he had to know. He would hate me for not telling him before but this was only the beginning.

"A place was to be invaded and terminated within the next five years. It was a large manor, and was a haven for mutants. Charles Xavoir was said to run it," out of the corner of my eye I saw the blood drain from Charles' face.

"Linda!" He said sharply. "Why have you withheld this? We need to go now and make sure to secure the grounds and this place." He wheeled over and gripped my upper arm, but I simply shook my head.

"Let me finish Charles, and you will understand."

"Linda-"

"Please, it is all that I ask of you at the moment," For I could not ask him to forgive me or see me as anything but a hatful animal.

"Carry on then," Charles finally said with more reluctance then not.

"I went through more of the files. I planned to come here once Ororo was ready. I didn't even think of the other mutants, I was so content on myself," I spat bitterly. I was so selfish, the pain in my chest from my own self hatred would never leave.

"As I went through the rest of the rest of the files, I found more about young mutants. They were all taken from their mothers, most of the mothers not even wanting to give up their child, not matter what they were like. They were taken and tested on, many never even making it to the basement. Most died. A new fury came over me then, they could kill all those children without even caring."

"The other men had come to see what was wrong for it seemed the two Whitecoats had come back and warned the other. There was at least fifty men outside the door when I finally heard them. The scuff of a shoe and the whispered gave away their position. The door had been closed, but it was now opening slowly, inch by inch. All the guns pointed inside," I was frozen for what felt like hours then, but must have only been second. I remember all the blood all over me and the floor. My bloody finger prints all over the desk, there was no way for me to be able to run from this.

"I still felt the power in the air, though it wasn't like before, but it was slowly coming to that. I took Ororo and pulled her behind me. The power seemed to be coming from everything around me. I felt it right as it reached its peak," the sensation was blissful. I could let go of all my pint up emotions and thoughts and feelings, I just let it all go, let all of it flow through me in the stream of power.

"I killed all the men. The building was collapsing. So I fled with Ororo, I broke a window and we ran out. I killed all those men and left the mutants there to die. I was selfish and heartless. It took us a week to get here. So you see, you don't need to prepare the grounds. They are all died. I was a monster, no better then they were. I let my power get the better of me. Those men could have had families and children. They could have loving wives who will never know what happened. I'm a monster, an animal."

Finally I looked at Charles. The man who had been so kind to me and had showed me nothing but caring patience, I had betrayed him, by being myself, because myself isn't good enough, because myself is an animal, a monster. But when I looked with my eerily red eyes into his icy blue ones, I only saw kindness and love, and a small amount of pity. He didn't seem to hate me, but then he didn't seem to understand. What I had done was plain wrong and hatful.

"What you did, was only instinct. It was self defense. You couldn't have done anything else."

"But what I did was still wrong," I whispered almost silently as I looked away from Charles.

**DID YOU SEE THAT ONE COMING?**

**Prob did, but whatever.**

**I just felt this whole talk needed two chapter**

**And this one is all in Linda's POV**

**Mainly cause you need to know all the stuff she is hiding from Charles**

**AND IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT SHE IS HIDING THIS FROM CHARLES**

**SO I hope you liked**

**And I hope your reviewing **

**Look at the bottom…**

**Do you see the review button…**

**CLICK IT!**

**Its calling for you…**

**TO REVIEW! - HAHAH that rhymed! (get it you, review!... ya im crazy, get over it.)**


	17. Chapter 15

**Hank*

I waited outside Charles door for what felt like hours, I had been waiting there half the day, listening to his and Linda's conversation. I hadn't come soon enough to hear the first half, for I had gone to make sure all was well and everything was in order in the house.

Most of the kids didn't even know anything was amiss, most of them went on with their afternoon, class free and carefree. Completely oblivious to the fact that one of the new mutants just had a total melt down, and from what I've heard, a melt down that could have easily killed us all.

The conversation was interesting to say the least, I didn't know a mutant could possess that much power and have so much potential. Linda had both human and animal blood in her, she seemed to have the best of both kinds. She had the hard snake skin to protect her put the more functional body of a human and the much superior human brain, but she still held the animal instincts, but I knew first hand these instincts could easily kill her as well as save her.

She would need to learn to control these instincts, though I didn't even know where to begin with that. All my attempts had failed on myself, though the snake instincts may not be so prevalent. But something had to be done so something like this wouldn't happen again. She was a great risk, but I think she's equally as valuable.

I calculated all that her body was capable of, and was astounded to find it could easily be at the same level as the young Jane, the teleported. Linda could be so much more then she was right now, from what I had heard, she was made into what she was. It would take a while for her to begin to work at acrobatics, but with the snake in her, I was sure she could easily surpass Jane's abilities.

She really was the best of both words, both animal and human, snakes were some of the fear injecting creatures that roamed this earth. She may even be venomous, but Linda probably

didn't even know that. Did she know anything about herself? How much potential she had?

*Charles*

It was hard. Trying to stay in conversation with Linda and listen to her and hear her story and give her feedback and at the same time be tuned into Hank's mind. It was rude of him to be listening in, but I'm glad he did. This made it easier for me, so that I didn't have to relay the information second hand and so that I could see what he had to say and hear all that was running through his mind and take it into consideration.

Linda looked away from me and mumbled something, almost silently. I didn't ketch it, but if it was of real importance Linda would have spoken up.

"If it is okay I would like to go back to my room," Linda said as more of a statement then a question. She stood, holding her head high, and didn't give me a glance as she crossed my room almost silently and opened the door. For a split second I was worried of what she would do at the sight of hand right outside my room.

"I suppose you should know," She all but hissed at him, her shoulders visibly tense through her small tank top.

*Hank*

I almost fell over as I heard the pad of her feet on the floor on the other side of the door. My animal instincts didn't seem to be able to save me this time. The door swung open and there she stood.

Linda's red eyes had a new fire that I hadn't seen in them before, but though she had this fire, there was something in her expression still that told me she was resigned. Like she had ceased to care at all of what happened to her. Her body visible tensed, right down to her shoeless feet, her toes almost curling, the design stuck out more prevently on her face as it almost seemed to pale.

Then color washed back into her face as she looked at me in disgust.

"I suppose you should know," I could almost hear the hiss in her words, "I may as well have everyone know," she continued with a humorless laugh.

"Let everyone! I'm a killer, an outcast, not to be trusted. Its for the best, I guess. Now everyone can be wary and hate me. Let them all hate me!"

She walked off, her muscles jerky and tense, like she could barley contain her anger.

*Linda*

I couldn't take it. Their pity and kindness! It was all but fake, no one could care for a killer. I was cold hearted, and I may as well start acting like it.

HA! The thought of meeting another Hank! Its like the heavens just wanted to spit in my face. To remind me of how cold hearted I was with the last Hank I knew. How much I made him hate me, how crude and selfish I had been to the young boy. What a way to remind me. Well I may as well start cold. No point in becoming selfish.

I may as well just be selfish.

No matter how many people I hurt.

Cause in the end if I don't hurt them now, it will only hurt them more later.

They may as well accept it.

That I'm cold.

Though I wish I didn't have to be.

I wish I could be the girl, the girl I was. Before my life was crap. Before my parents went mad. Before I lost the only friend I had. Before I lost everything I held dear. Before I was taken. Before I started caring again, only to have my heart wrenched from me.

I was I was the girl who would pick flowers. The large yellow ones in the forest behind her house. In the forest that was not yet her worst nightmare. With her parents watchful eyes behind her. When she rarely had to care for herself.

When she was free.

Free of the guilt and shame.

Free of the pain and anguish.

Free of everything.

Without even realizing it, I was out in the forest. My legs had carried me this far, but I wasn't done yet. I kept running. Not even noticing how well my stride was in this new body. Not even seeing anything as my mind wondered. Wondered to the happy times. The better times. When I was a young girl. When I didn't need to care.

**Ok so ya, I know you are prob like whoa. But no worries. **

**Ok so I know how you might have realized that Hank saw things that Charles didn't notice or that he saw or heard things before Charles did, there is a reason for that. I didn't just do it cause I didn't go back and check when Charles noticed it and when Hank noticed it. Hank is able to see and hear things that Charles can't always. **

**I know that was packed with drama.**

**But you love me anyway. **

**Enough so that you will review. **

**Like now…**

**So REVIEW!**


	18. Chapter 16

*Hank*

I waited only a moment after Linda ran out. In that moment I made a decision.

In that moment, I had perfect clarity.

Yes I was a screw up, or I had at least screwed up more then I would like to imagine in the past.

I was a screw up, but I could change.

I could help the girl this time.

I could be the man I was suppose to be.

I would be the man I was suppose to be.

And without a glance back at Charles, I sprinted off after Linda. I shrugged out of my lab coat, wearing only pants. I felt the wind ruffle my hair, my feet pounded the group. My eyes dilated, taking everything in, from the kids playing on the back lawn to Linda's dark figure plunging into the forest. I smelled the scents and odors of the lawn, the fresh cut grass and newly turned soil. I heard everything, the screaming kids, chasing each other, the tweeting birds, resting in the trees.

It was all so real, all in such clarity. It was as though I was waking from a dream.

*Jubilee*

I wasn't stupid. Let me put that in first. As much as Charles and Hank and many of the other professors thought, I wasn't stupid.

I saw almost anything out of place that happened and if I didn't see it, I noticed it.

For example, I knew that shit had hit the fan, the literal sense of course. I could tell something wasn't going as planned. My new roomy, this Linda chick, she hadn't come to our room since she went downstairs to greet Ororo after training.

And another example of the fact that I'm not stupid.

She never got to Ororo. I know this of course from simply observing the kid. Jane and Ororo had clambered back to their room about an hour after Linda left. Ororo looked in my room from the shared bathroom. She had a great poker face, as I have found.

She looked in all curious and I could see the disappointment play across her face for barely a second before it vanished.

She was looking for Linda. Plain and simple.

Which meant… Linda hadn't seen her.

It was really simple to understand people if you really watched. And I guess that involves paying attention. Which I am not good at, like at all.

But today I had decided to.

Mainly cause Charles said he's tired of me stirring the shit pot, or as he put it my 'bothersome attitude toward most things in life'.

So I was going to be better. Well at not stirring the shit pot.

For a while.

Or at least today.

But whatever, for now I could tell shit was going down without my doing. Especially when I went down stairs for dinner and happened to look out the window.

Guess who was running across the lawn?

You are correct. My new roomy. Linda.

And do you know what dearest Linda was wearing in the frigid November cold?

You guessed it. Short shorts and a take top.

And do you know who was following her topless?

Oh how smart you are! It was of course Hank. The Hank who doesn't seem to care for a soul, not in the bad way, but in the way that he's distanced himself and become resigned from everyone around him.

Shutting up can actually help you sometimes.

And sometimes it can make you really confused. Like right now.

What a hell of a life I have.

**Ya I know it was short and all...**

**Hey ya, this may seem out of place just adding in this little Jubilee bit, but trust me there is use of it, so bare with me people! And oh my gosh I gotta ask yall something. **

**So would anyone be interested in a book about a futuristic or other world where elves took over human society? Cause I have like this plot line for I book I was thinking about making and its about that, so u know just send me a review with your answer in it if you want!**

**Well I love yall!**

**Xoxox Carrie!**


	19. Chapter 17

My breath caught in my throat, and I felt trimmers rack through my body. A small sob came out as I curled in on myself. I felt so deadly alone out in the forest. The birds seemed to have stopped singing and the bugs stopped buzzing. I felt the heat rise in me again, a tingling sensation that I knew all too well.

Before I could let myself do any real damage I got up and started again. This time running for a destination. It didn't take long to hear the sound of rushing water and not long after that to find the creek itself.

I walked into it and stood in the center only knee deep. The water was frigidly cold but the stream was in sunlight and I felt the warmth. I also felt another being, coming closer. As quiet as a mouse and with stealth that can only come from animal grace.

Looking over I expected to see a fox.

But foxes aren't blue.

And foxes don't wear pants.

And foxes wouldn't stare into your eyes with that intelligence and sorrow.

"I'm sorry," he chocked out.

"I don't want you to hate me like everyone else. I don't want you to think of me as a savage beast with no manners. I shouldn't have been listening, it was not my story to hear in on, I should have asked you myself. You should have had the decision whether to tell me or not. I'm terrible sorry, please just-" And in those moments all my resolves to become cold and cruel crumbled. I couldn't blow off a man with this much sorrow and pain with so much weight on his shoulders, it wasn't who I was.

"You are anything but a beast," I whispered softy, though with intensity and determination as I looked into his golden eyes. So eerily beast like.

"You have intelligence that is hard to come by, you may be rude, but it takes a brave man to own up to his faults and apologize and I praise you for that. However, I cannot trust you. It pains me to be like this, but I need to see you are a true man and can be trusted," And for just a second I could see hope flick through his eyes and it took everything I had not to go back on everything I just said.

I walked past him smelling his forest wood scent, and I almost brushed my hand against his arm to give him comfort, but I resisted and strode forward in what I hoped was the direction of the school. Not wanting to glace back in case it he looked at me with his sorrow filled eyes again.

*Hank*

Linda almost brushed my arm, and that would be all it took for me to grab her and beg her for her trust, for I felt more then knew that she would be the one who would really trust me and see me. She seemed wise, but there was still something off, a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I should know something that I don't. I hated that feeling.

I watched her head back to the mansion, and finally settled down on the bank of the shallow creek. Small pebbles and stones shinned and reflected the glowing sun overhead. I stuck my feet in the fast moving current and immediately withdrew them, it was deathly cold. Linda's mutation seemed to be even greater then I originally thought.

Finally looking up at the over hang of green leafs I decided to head back to the school. I could at least finish a report of Ororo's mutation to give to Charles.

*Linda*

Jubilee knew something. She put up an appearance but it seemed she was more intelligent then she let on. I could see the funny looks she would give me when she thought I wasn't looking. When I finally looked her full on when I caught her giving me a look, she looked at me with even more curiosity. I expected her to look away sheepishly, but instead she kept staring till I cleared my throat with a glare at her.

"I've never seen Hank so caught up in someone. Well I mean besides being friends with me for a time," she finally said with a smirk. Completely thrown off I looked back with a question look.

"What are you talking about?" I said coolly, hiding my face under a mask of fake annoyance.

"Well Hank you see, Hank is a loner. It appears he's always has been, and for once it looks like someone has changed him. What did you do? How did you pull that stick out his ass?" She looked actually curios though I could see a spark of laughter in her eyes.

"I still don't understand you," I said still while projecting annoyance and snobbyness. It seemed that Jubilee wasn't to trust, though she seemed sweet and it pained me to be so rude.

"Can you not see it? He likes you, like has a total crush on you. I've never seen Hank chase after a girl like he did today. I mean I've never even seen him chase after anything with such desperation. I'm not blind, and much to most peoples amazement, I'm not stupid. I can see when shit is going down around me, and let me tell you **shit is going down. **The school has never had someone make an entrance like you and Ororo did, given the school has been open for only two years, but still. I think you coming along out here has stirred the shit pot. Not to be mean or anything like that," she said like she was trying to get back at my own snobby and rudeness, "But your coming** has **stirred the shit pot, but I don't even know if that's bad or good, but whatever. For now all I can tell is that the shit is going to hit the fan. "

"You like the word shit," I said simply, though the word felt dirty in my mouth. I had never been one to cuss, not with my parents, well when they were still parents.

"OH MY GAWD!" Jubilee threw her hands up and glared at me, "Did you not just hear at all what I just said?"

"I heard."

"AND ALL YOU CAN SAY IS THAT I LIKE SHIT!"

"I don't think you like it," I said laughter clear in my eyes.

"Yes you did!"

"No," she didn't even seem to realize how much fun I was having, even with the immature humor it came from and my childish tactics, though this wasn't me at all.

"You said I liked shit!"

"I said you liked the word," I finally burst out with a giggle. And to my eyes the giggle sounded insane and crazy. I didn't even know why I thought it was so funny. It. Just. Was!

"Oh," she said before full on laughing as well. She doubled over with the laughter, which only made me laugh more. Finally I staggered to my bed and flopped on, only to be joined my Jubilee second later.

"What a sorry bunch of losers we are! Laughing over shit," Jubilee said with a laugh.

"I guess so."

"you know I thought you were all uptight and snobby. Guess I was wrong." And I realized in that second that me and Jubilee would probably become incredibly close and share everything, and I also realized that I had failed.

I couldn't be snobby and rude.

Cold and hard.

Distant from the other people.

I needed to be, but I could have one friend. That wouldn't do me so bad. Would it?

**SO what you think?**

**You like? **

**Well you should review.**

**Like now.**

**So …**

**Ya, I got nothing to- OH WAIT!**

**Let me tell you.**

**I had a lock in for band. **

**I slept two hours the whole night.**

**I'm that beyond tired stage of it at the moment. **

**Like ugh.**

**Well that's it!**

**SO review and all that!**

**-Carrie**


	20. Chapter 18

I knew Linda had made a decision, even though it was hard to read and comprehend her thoughts. She had made the decision to be distant from the other mutants, as to not get close, though I couldn't reach into her mind further to understand her reasoning.

That cold hard determination was what Linda had run into the forest with and it was what she had come back to the forest with, but when I reached for her mind to find humor and lightheartedness, I was puzzled.

This young girl, with a rather hard past, had made a decision that it seemed she was willing to keep, well at least with Hank, but she let it all slip away for Jubilee.

Was it because they were the same age? But that would contradict how she acted with Hank.

Was it because they were both girls? She had bonded quit well with Ororo, but that seemed because she felt responsible for her, and she didn't seem to want anything to do with any of the other mutant students.

Was it because of their shared hard past? But that couldn't be it either, Jubilee tells no one of her time on the streets, I only came across the information after looking through her mind.

So what was it? What had made Linda become so close to Jubilee?

*Linda*

I stayed up well past my supposed bedtime, though I could hear kids running through the house all night. I laid in my new bed with my new clothes and my new skin and I thought.

Of life.

Of my life right now.

Of my life in the past.

Of my hopeless future.

I thought of the people I had met.

All these other mutants that I could scarcely dream of.

I thought of my mutation.

Of its benefits.

Of its disadvantages.

Of all of its effects on people.

All of the negative effects.

My life was once so simple.

I had parents and friends. I had a life worth living. I had a life that was mine.

I was loved and remembered.

I was wanted and cared for.

I had almost everything I could ever want or need.

But it was taken from me.

Stolen.

And I was left with this mess.

This chaos that I seemed to cause.

I wanted my life back.

I wanted my parents back.

I wanted the friends I never had.

I want the impossible.

Cause I can't have a life.

I can't have parents.

I can't have friends.

Not with who I am. Not with what I was made into. And not with what I'll have to become.

My life was stolen from me.

And I have to face the facts.

I'll never be strong enough to get that life back.

No one would ever be strong enough.

Its impossible.

And I slowly drifted off. In my saddened state of mind, depressed about everything.

*Hank*

I fell asleep in a bed that I couldn't call mine. In a place I couldn't call home.

I felt alone and lost.

Yet I felt a drive.

I drive for the one girl that might be able to see and understand me.

The drive to make her see past the beast in me. To see me as me.

It was impossible.

Hopeless really, but I was a mutant.

I defined the impossible.

I would make her see.

Only her if no one else.

She was wise beyond her years and she would have to see.

Just as I saw everything. She would see everything about me.

I would make it happen.

What was I to lose?

One more friend.

Nothing new to me.

Ok a little short, but let me tell you, the next one will be packed full of stuff. It may be a tad bit out of place but it'll come together… hopefully

And so how'd you like that?

I hoped you loved it!

I worked pretty hard… ish

But I do like this story.

I feel attached to Linda…

SO review and all that jazz!

-Carrie


	21. Chapter 19

*Ororo*

I watched Linda sleep for a while. It might seem creepy and odd but it was lovely to watch her sleep. When she slept, she was at peace. All her worries disappeared and she didn't have the hard look on her face.

Her sleeping face was what had brought me so close to her at the Labs. She was one of the most rebellious mutants there, well after a while she was.

When she came in she was as scared as everyone else. But one day it changed. I remember the day. I think we all did. All the mutants there. It was the day the Whitecoats took a group of four young mutants.

The mutants had defied them in a lab test and word had spread. The Whitecoats didn't like that. They wanted authority. Complete control, Linda told me once, that some would call it an absolute monarchy, it was a term she learned in history. They wanted total control.

So to get that, they had to make an example. An example of what would happen if you went against the rules and the ruler.

They took the four young mutants out into the middle of the hallway in the holding. Right were everyone could see them. It was three boys and a girl, Steve, Jim, Clark, and Ashley. The unsaid leader was Jim. They took the mutants one by one. First starting with Ashley.

The knife that was used was dull and hard to cut with, used to make them suffer. It took over three hours for Ashley to finally still. We all couldn't look away, it was so awful and crude, we wanted it to stop so badly and didn't want to witness such a horrid event, but we couldn't let Ashley feel alone.

Linda was in the cell across from me at the time. She had tears streaming down her face and a look of brokenness. There was strain on her face for some reason. Like she was trying to do something or using her mutation. I still don't fully know her mutation.

Then it was Steve's turn. By then most of the mutants were curled up in the backs of their cells and had their heads turned away.

Steve's screams ricocheted off the walls, hurtling the sound back to us. I wanted to start screaming myself, but someone beat me to it.

Linda's screams were more shrill and awful then Steve's ever could have been.

She was doubled over in her cell hardly standing, clutching her head. She stood like that for hours, though after only thirty minutes her screams died down to moans. Finally when Steve stilled, she crumbled to the floor.

Her breaths could be heard through out the cells, for everyone was still and quiet as death. The Whitecoats looked in on her cell but left her be and went to Clark.

He didn't scream. He didn't even show pain for the first few minutes. He just looked at the Whitecoats with his large brown eyes. A few of them shifted nervously, obviously not comfortable with taking part in this slaughter.

Linda had tears streaming down her face, her face would forever be burned into my memory. It showed all her pain and all the pain she felt it showed her confusion and somehow her compassion to Clark for defying the Whitecoats by just staying silent. It showed everything when her normal expression was guarded and untelling.

That's almost what her sleeping face reminded me of, for more times then not she had a bad dream that would emotionally play across her face. It was one of the few times she showed that she had emotions and she cared for more then just herself and I, that she cared for almost everyone around her. It showed that she had feelings and would one day fall, which was a sad and sometimes forgotten thought, but true none the less.

So what did you think?

You like it?

Thought so.

So any suggestions, comments, questions, concerns, all that other jazz?

Well I would have to have them.

So you can go down and click on the review link and tell me.

Like now.

!

So I hoped you liked and it was all right and stuff, cause lets face it I'm bumbling around as blind as a bat.

-Carrie


	22. Chapter 20

I knew it was rude, and poor mannered of me, but I had to find out more about Linda. I could tell she wasn't plotting against the school and wasn't deliberately trying to ruin everything here, but that didn't make her any less of a threat.

Her mind was so clouded and obscene that I knew it would be next to impossible to search it for information, so I went to the next best option: Ororo.

It was cruel of me to use the poor girl like this, but I needed to find out more about their past and Ororo wouldn't say anything without Linda's say in it, so I had to look through her mind or I tried to keep on the surface.

It was a little to easy to find out about Linda. Ororo starting thinking about her only a few minutes after I entered her mind. I watched her recall the memory of Linda in such pain over the boys mauled before her eyes, I felt Ororo's pain and hurt but I needed to see Linda's.

Though Ororo started thinking of Linda's waking and sleeping face, I went with her old thought. I plunged into her mind, searching for the time in the cells when the children were murdered.

Ororo had just brushed the surface of the scene. It was as if she was made to forget or not look into that part of her mind, I could almost feel a faint trace of another telepathic presence in her mind, and this reminded me again of how much of a battered mental state she came in.

I watched as they took the last boy out to be killed. By Ororo's memory, his name was Jim and he was the ring leader of the bunch. He was forced to watch the rest of the children suffer and die to make him hurt both mentally and physically.

He looked a mess when he was brought up into the middle of the hallway. His hair was matted and some clumbers were all together missing and tear stains ran down his cheeks to his small chin. His deep green almost brown eyes were blood shot and had dead look to them, as though he had already given up.

Linda was in a bared cell across from Linda. She looked at the men that surrounded the boy with more hate and emotion then I had ever seen in a person's eyes. She looked like she was ready to attack, but her eyes shifted to the boy and I saw them break. I saw her sadness flood back in the sorrow in her expression spoke volumes.

The boy crashed to the ground when the men let go of him. He started to shake and simply looked at the ground, not even having the will to lift himself into a sitting position. The long hunting knife came out then, it was old and seemed to be rusting.

The boy jerked to life the second the knife cut through flesh. His eyes burned with pain and his mouth was open in a silent scream of horror. His back arched in an awkward angel and his hands splayed out at his feet.

Ororo wasn't looking at Linda when she screamed something, and by the time she looked up Linda's face was white and she smashed into the floor right as the boy stilled and the men around him looked at him in shock and then to Linda.

Ororo's mind went into a frenzy and I felt her pain as her fists smashed into the glass door, blood smeared onto her hands from a half healed cut and her screams echoed around the small cell. Linda started to rise, yet her face was unseen, all that Ororo saw was her black hair splayed around her before everything went black.

Ok so what you think?

Ya I know this was short and could have been with the other chapter, but it flows better this way.

So anything you want to say to me?

Cause you know all u gots to do is hit that lil review link…

That's it

So you *nudge nudge wink wink* should click it and tell me whatever it is you wanna to say..

But really

"You're killing me smalls!"

Ya I'm awkward

BUT YOU LOVE ME!

So you'll review!

-Carrie!


	23. Chapter 21

*Charles*

I had never had a memory end like that. Just complete black like there was nothing after it, well that's how I imagine it would be like to be looking at a person's mind when they died, but I still felt Ororo and could still search the rest of her mind, it was just I couldn't see till a few days after that when she woke up groggy and out of it.

It was confusing, and something that needed to be taken into account about the two of them.

*Linda*

I felt wonderful when I woke up. Light and airy and ready for a new day, but all that crashed around me in a burning sort of way. I remembered.

I remembered what happened yesterday. How I had a near break down and could have killed everyone at the mansion. How I decided to become cold and distant. How I had already broken my decision and gone back on my thoughts.

But it was a new day. Yet that didn't mean what had happened would be forgotten. It would be taken into account, and it would be used against me, yet still it was a new day.

Jubilee was still in the twin bed next to mine. She had her arms sprawled out over the edge of the bed and her sheets were crumbled at her feet. Her face was full of joy and happiness at a dream she was having. I could only guess at what would make the sarcastic and pessimistic girl so happy.

I walked into the hall to see if anyone else was up and moving and found clothes laid out next to our door. A note was attached:

Linda,

I am delighted to see that you are getting along great here and will be staying with us. Your class schedule is on the next page and please know if you need anything come find me or one of the teachers.

Professor X

P.S. Here are some clothes for you, as the ones you have might become dirty

The next page was a print out:

A Days:

1st- Pre Calc, Prof. Amara

2nd- English III, Prof. Claire

3rd- Biology, Prof. Hank

4th- Mutant Studies, Prof. X

B days:

1st- World History, Prof. Kelly

2nd- Study Hall

3rd- Gym, Alex

4th- Combat training, Alex/Prof. Hank/ Prof. X

Please note:

Class times depend on classes

Curfew: 10:00, unless instructed otherwise by Professor

Lights out: 12:00

Thinking back to last night, most students were still running through the mansion by eleven o'clock if not later. These rulers seemed to be more of guidelines to most students.

The clothes were a pair of jeans and gym shorts, both used, but clean, and three t-shirts. It was the best clothes I would be wearing since I was taken. It almost brought a smile to my face.

I muffled grunt came from behind me, and I looked back to Jubilee lifting her head from a nest of pillow, her short blonde hair sticking out everywhere. She looked around in a bleary haze then slumped back into bed, not even noticing me standing in the doorway.

I looked over my classes again, and frowned. I had taken most of these classes my junior or senior year of high school. I would have to speak to Charles about this, but for now I would go down and find something good to eat, school food had never been good.

*Hank*

Charles had informed me that Linda and Ororo would both be joining one of my classes. Ororo, being in beginning physical science and Linda being biology. I was excited to have someone new, a nice change from all the other students that couldn't stand the sight of me, but I was also nervous and scared. Something I hadn't been since Raven left.

I could finally think her name, the pain was still their but it was dull and numbed now. Like I might finally be getting over her, but I couldn't be. She was top beautiful, too lovely, too perfect to get over. I should have seen what she wanted from me, how she wanted to be herself with me, she thought she could be herself with me out of all the people and mutants she knew and I had been a jerk. But the past is the past and its better to leave it there.

It would be different with Linda, she did almost resemble Raven, in the fact that they both had colored skin with designs on them, though Linda's was more faded and scar like.

It was odd comparing the two, I never thought Raven would be comparable, but she was, but she was almost incomparable to Linda in a since. Raven was happy and bright and welcoming, everything I wished to be, but Linda was dark and cold and mysterious, which intrigued me more then anything.

They were almost compete opposites, but they seemed so alike to me. My mental vision may just be clouded but that would be questioning my intelligence, which is next to impossible.

Ok so kinda mid-sized…

Good rit?

I know you all are prob really bored with this…

I'm about to start all the good stuff… soon…maybe

I don't know…

Well please review and all that!


	24. Chapter 22

*Linda*

"Professor? Professor. I need to talk to you about my classes," I knocked on the large wooden door. Trying to enter the room that I had stormed out of only the day before.

"Come in," came a soft reply from in the room.

Turning the knob, I entered the room and looked around. Taking in the room and its furnishings this time. It was a normal sized study. Not too large, not to small. Nothing fancy, but very plush and home-y. I liked it.

Charles was sitting next to a coffee table, I sat on the chair next to him. The worn leather was soft from use, and the fading black, becoming more of a dark brown or grey.

"Yes?" Charles asked when I didn't speak for a bit.

"I have some concerns, the main one being about my schedule. I've taken most of these classes before I was taken. So I see no point in taking them again," I didn't even yet understand why I was doing this. I should just keep quiet and moody and away from everyone, but in the long run it would be worse retaking so many courses.

"My apologies, please tell me what classes it is you have taken, so I can create a more suitable schedule," Charles didn't seem this formal the last time we had spoken, but I guess it wasn't something for me to question.

"Well, um," pulling out the folded paper that held my schedule, "I have taken, Pre Calculus and Calculus, I've also taken English III and IV, and Biology and Chemistry, although I haven't taken the class 'World History', but I did take a class called 'History through the Ages', which was basically the history of the world."

"It seems that you have graduated high school."

"I missed graduation, personal things came up. But I finished all my classes and everything," and I couldn't help but remember why I missed graduation. I couldn't help but remember the sound of my mother wailing and wailing. I couldn't help but remember the orange flowers. I couldn't help but remember how alone it was.

"Then you can simply do combat training and mutant studies. Unless there is a subject or material matter that you specialize in and would like to teach to younger students," And that didn't really sound like a suggestion, more like a demand or obligation that I was to fulfill.

"I'm crap at all school related classes, but I could help with combat, if only for aerial and acrobatic, it seems I have acquired that skill since my enhanced mutation," because I couldn't see where else that skill had come from. Before I had been mutated further, I wasn't the most balanced person, I wasn't clumsy or anything, but I wasn't this fantastic gymnast or dancer, so some good might have come from all that pain and, well, I guess madness.

"If you can do aerial and acrobatics, then I have a better class for you, if you are up to it. I would like you to do a gymnastics class, but I want you to incorporate a students mutation into the gymnastics," Charles said it like he had planned to spring this on me the whole time, and I guess it was fair, I was using his house and his clothes and his resources to stay alive and well.

"For example, you know Jane, the girl around Ororo's age. She is fantastic at gymnastics, and you watch her use those skills as she teleports from place to place," and I had heard of Jane, from Ororo. She described the young girl like she was a god. She said she was superb in all things gymnastics. I didn't want to have to go up against that, but from the way Charles was talking, I didn't have a choice. And from what I could see, it would be almost offensive to say no, for one I would turn down this man who had basically given me everything, and who had healed Ororo, and I didn't want to have to give this man anything in return. This class may be the only thing I had to owe him, and it was next to nothing of what he might demand.

*Charles*

I liked to believe that I was being firm, not harsh. Although, I know at heart that there was a harshness to my words and actions. I put Linda in a position that she would have to seem rude and selfish to turn down.

I hadn't even come up with the idea myself. Young Ororo had helped me. I glanced over her mind while she was with Jane and noticed how she seemed to associate Linda with gym and how she seemed to think a class like this would be perfect for Linda to work with or teach.

Of course, Ororo hadn't actually known that this class would come so soon. I had reached further into her mind and found she was trying to build up a plan to tell me about Linda's talent, but she didn't have to.

I put Linda in an almost cruel position. I had given her this home and these clothes and this food, and all out of goodness, I truly hadn't expected something in return, but opportunity had presented itself, and I just couldn't turn it down. I had made her feel obliged to teach something or do something, because I could tell, just from the small surface of her mind that I could see, I could tell that she didn't want to be in dept with me and she didn't want to have to owe me anything or any service.

I was beginning to see the way her mind and herself worked. I could see the person underneath this hard exterior that she was attempting with little success to put up around her. She was afraid, that I could tell from almost anything, but she was afraid of so much more then I thought. I thought it was simply the fear of those lab men coming to get her. But I should have known her fear was far more complex then that.

She seemed to almost fear life itself.

**Well ya. **

**That was that. **

**So review if you have a sec, which you do b/c you are reading this. **

**Thanks for the reviews that I have already, they really help and I'm trying to improve and take them into account, so you should review!**


	25. Chapter 23

*Linda*

Charles failed to mention that Hank was extremely acrobatic and would be helping in my class, so on my first class on my first day as a real 'teacher', it came as a surprise when he showed up to assist me and explain the different students' mutations.

I had one student, thankfully. Jane was a breeze, she already knew how to incorporate gymnastics and acrobatics with her mutation; in fact she taught me a few things with her style and moves. Hank did as well, though I found it almost unnerving to have him in the room, but in the since that he made me uncomfortable, not that I thought him dangerous, physically at least.

Although it was even worse after.

"Linda, can I talk with you for a minute or two?" And he knew he could, because really where else was I suppose to go?

So I walked back into the padded gym room and went over to were Hank was standing. Without even looking up at his face, I took a rigid stance, not wanting him to catch onto any of my uncomfortablness.

"I just wanted to ask you if we could meet anytime outside of class?" And what the crap was that suppose to mean? I was screwed if he was trying to ask me out or something.

"What?" I uttered in complete surprise, letting disbelief bleed into my voice. What the crap was he implying? What was going on in his head?

"Well I was wondering if we could meet in my office so we could discus the different students that could incorporate gymnastics into their mutations," he didn't even realize it. He didn't even understand what I was implying, he didn't even understand what he seemed to be implying.

"Oh, um sure, we can set up a time later," and with that I booked it out of there. There was no way I was staying in there. Ya I felt like a kid again, getting embarrassed over stupid thing like boys, though this boy was covered in fur and had a huge brain capacity, far from normal and kid-like.

Kind of like the other Hank that I once knew.

The one with the huge brain capacity, the one that sometimes just didn't get things.

And my brain did it again.

It took me, taking me from the person I am, to who I was...

"Would you please just come to the library with me?"

"Hank, I told you before, I can't I need to stay home. My parents need my help," I remember watching his face scoff at me in a way not to make me cringe, but to show his disbelief. It would have angered other, but they just didn't understand that Hank just didn't always understand, he just sometimes forgot that we have emotions and feelings that can be hurt. He didn't understand that there was a reason I needed to always stay so close to home, with his big brain, he still couldn't piece together that maybe things in my home were not what they looked like from the outside.

Stumbling back into the present, I looked around to find myself leaned against thewall opposite from the padded room. I picked myself up and rushed down the hall, hoping none saw.

*Hank*

I saw her stumble into the wall. I was just about to leap forward and help her, to see what was wrong, to prove to her that I was more human then beast.

But I stopped.

Right after her hand slammed into the wall to stop her from hitting her head, her whole body jolted and she pushed off the wall.

I slinked into the shadow and hoped she couldn't sense me as she looked around then hurried down the hallway.

Something had happened to her in those few short seconds, and it seemed it was more then just a physical body problem. Charles had said her mental state wasn't as it should be, and this seemed to be a prime example.

*Charles*

I felt it. It was like a dagger at the edge of my mind, almost seeming to graze my mind. And I felt the throbbing pain as it left, on the edge of my mind still. Relaxing, I carefully felt around with my mind and found that the fading pain was coming from an area near the padded gym room.

The pain was gone as quickly as it came and if I didn't know any better I would say it was never there. But the ghost of the pain lingered in my mind, and as I felt around the area, I only found Linda and Hank's minds.

Feeling around in Hank's mind, all I felt was confusion and worry. But when I felt Linda's mind, again I couldn't completely read it, but I could feel the pain and misery coming off her mind. She was just in her own personal hell, and it somehow emitted, so that any telepath in a ten mile radius could feel her pain.

Again, I find myself thinking, she's one to watch.

*Ororo*

My first day of classes was awesome. Just awesome.

I had never been to a real school before, I grew up in a small tribe, and they had school, but my leader pulled me aside for 'special training', but this place was unreal. It was so much fun.

It didn't even feel like the school that all the kids would complain about, it was just do some education stuff then talk for the rest of the time. Was this how real school was? I had never had so much fun before.

In the village, I was always being taken away from the other kids so I could practice this or that or help with this or that. It was so awful and so much work. From the age of five, when I discovered my abilities, till I was taken to the labs, all I did was work. I never hung out with kids my own age and I never ever had fun.

But some people here were kind of weird, kind of off. Some other kids thought I would be like that, they all think because of the way I have been captured and taken into the lab for the last three years that I would be sad and well hating life.

But they didn't think that I wouldn't. I mean I'm enjoying every minute of this new freedom and I'm loving it so much. I never thought I would be able to hang out with so many kids my own age.

I know the school isn't that big yet, or so I've been told, but most of my classes have at least eight or nine kids, and they are all near my age. Its incredible. When I was growing up, I thought I was the only one with powers and mutations, but I'm not alone, not at all, far from it. Even at the labs, I felt kind of alone, ya there were other kids there, but they were all so different and I thought they were from around the world like me, but most of the kids at the school are from the US.

All these mutants in the US. I wonder if there is more? Could there be? There is already so many here.

Its just all so amazing taking it all in. I've never been to a math class before or a history class. My tribe leader thought it was important for me to learn English with proper grammar and all that, but he saw no point in history or math. He thought science was important, but only the basics, and then the details of the science of weather.

I knew all about the science of weather. I could tell you what was going to happen today by just looking at the sky, and well of course the fact that I could feel the weather helped too.

This place, this new home, it was amazing. I hadn't seen Linda all say, but I'm sure she feels the same way. Jane said she taught her gymnastics' class, I'm so glad Charles was able to pick up on her gymnastics abilities.

**I'm so dreadfully sorry about the long wait!**

**I had school and exams and i went on this super cool mission trip to the amazon!**

**It was awesome, i went with a group called Amazon Outreach specailizing in getting suppplise and medical treatment to the people along the river and i was able to love on those young kids there. It was really great!**

**Well i hope yall like this so so so sorry for the wait!**


	26. Chapter 24

*Linda*

Thinking of Hank, the one I once knew, it hurt so much. What I had done to him was cruel and selfish. I should have never pushed him away like that, in the end it did more damage then good. I should have known, he could have helped me in some way, he could have just been there and that would be enough. I just needed him to be there, just be there for me and be the friend that I so desperately needed.

I had made my decision though, I had pushed him away and now I didn't even know where he was. I had no way of contacting him, no way of just seeing him and knowing he was well and alive. I just wish I could see him. I needed him so much and still do. I need someone to lean on, I hate admitting it. But this body I've been cursed with, this stupid mind that has to keep bringing up the past, I just can't take it. I can't make it through without someone. And he was all I had, I can't burden Ororo with this, and Jubilee wouldn't take it seriously. I'm just so lost.

So desperately lost.

And so scared.

I just let this madness happen to me. I should have stopped it, somehow in some way.

*Hank*

I wasn't about to just let Linda walk away after she had nearly collapsed right in front of me, but I couldn't let it be known to her that I was following. She already didn't like me too much, and I'm determined to prove to her that I'm not a monster or beast. She had to believe me, I needed her to, something deep inside me just wanted her approval.

She went about normally, or as normally as she got. I followed her up to the kitchen were she quickly took a bottle of water and headed outside to the back lawn. There was a mutant combat course going on at the time, and she had to make a wide arch through the forest to get to the far end of the lawn.

I watched the combat course as a means of occupation in case she happened to look behind me, but when I looked up again to where her back had disappeared into the forest, I found that I couldn't find her. Searching the far end of the ground, I didn't see the rust red figure of Linda. My eyes roaming over the edge of the forest, I saw no trace of her, the ground was to hard for her foot to leave any indentions and she other wise didn't seem to have touched the earth in any way.

I had to follow her in, I knew I had too. What if she was going off and meeting people trying to take down the school, what if she was plotting against us, that would explain her odd behavior, I had to go and make sure. Charles would expect it of me, to make sure all was well and safe.

Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, which of course no one was, I quickly walked to the forest and once under the cover of trees, I took of into a run. There was no telling how far Linda could have gotten in the time I had been on the lawn, and her sent would soon fade if I didn't book it. Again I saw next to no trace of her, only this time I could faintly see footprints here and there in the leaves. I smelled her too, the odd sent that I couldn't place coming off of her as she had moved through the forest, for once I'm glad for these animal like traits that I have.

I could only faintly hear the animals in the forest, but as I came to a stop the chirps of birds and rustles of squirrels came into clarity again. I felt more then heard the rush of water. I was by the stream, the one Linda and I had seen each other before. I felt the rush of the stream vibrating through the ground and being felt by my ape like feet. I was in a surreal kind of light, were it could be night or day because the trees overhead were too thick to let light in. I felt miles away from everyone and everything, and now I understood.

I understood why Linda had come out here the first time, she might not even understand why she herself had done it, but I understood. It felt so peacefully and almost relaxing, if I could relax, to be out here away from everything. This was why she ran the first time I saw her in the forest, you couldn't be at peace when there was a beast like me looming around. She wanted to get away from it all, from the noise and the people. From the worries of life and the regrets of everything. To get away from your past and start a new, to just forget.

Slumping to the ground were I had stood, I put my head in my hands and fell into a pit of self pity. This hadn't been the first time, nor do I think would it be the last.

My self pity came slightly from Raven, the girl I thought I loved, but it also came from my past. All of my regrets and mistakes. I could never forget. Ever. My brain was in constant overload and didn't allow me to forget.

My brain, it wasn't as sharp then, though, so the details were fuzzy, but to forget what I had said and done, that was impossible. To forget my stupidity. To forget my cruelness. To forget my selfishness.

All to the one person I could call a friend.

To forget how I had made the worst mistake ever, how I had thrown a friend away, my only friend. The one person that understood me more then anything. The one person who knew what to say or do, how to act and comfort me. That one person, I had thrown her away, like she was trash, when she was really a queen, a jewel, a treasure that I should have loved and cherished, but I threw away.

No one forgets things like that.

Ever.

**Ya so I had a little bit of writers block and took a while to get this one out. Sorry bout that guys. **

**I know I could have done this longer, but I felt like I should have just ended with ever. **

**I do hope you like this chapter and fanfic. **

**Please review, it really super duper helps!**


	27. Chapter 25

*Linda*

I could feel the icy chills of the stream water, but it didn't affect my skin. I could feel the bitter cold but it didn't hurt me or make me want to remove my feet from. Again this cursed skin I had did this to me. It happened on hot object too, I learned.

I was in the school kitchen when it happened, luckily alone. I was heating up left over pizza that had apparently been ordered hours before, though no one told me of it. I used the toaster oven so that the pizza would be crispier and when I went to take it out, my hand grazed the door of the toaster oven. I felt the heat, but it didn't hurt, I didn't even cry out in pain, because there was none, at all. I examined my had after and found no mark or burn from where it hit the heated surface.

Some might call it extraordinary, although how could I find this awful mutated skin extraordinary? I was cursed, cursed with this new appearance and power when everything and everyone I had cared about were gone, and it seemed in return I got this. I got this it seemed as I compromise for all I had lost and never had. It was so unjust and nothing I wanted.

I hated it. I hated all of it, I hated my life. I hated this curse I was given and hated all that was taken. I hated everything about everything in my life. I hated how I couldn't seem to do anything or get anything right. I shouldn't have all of this, I should have just had normal parents and normal friends and a real life, not this thing I have.

And I fell into this pit of self pity and self hating. It was selfish but for once I was going to let myself do this. I was going to be selfish and I don't care how selfish I was. My life was utter crap and I had the right to selfish and have a pity party like this. I had suffered enough crap in my life to be entitled to this.

My hand flew up to my face as I felt something warm sliding down my cheek, but I felt something warm and wet, a single tear had escaped my eye. It was weak, the ultimate sign of weakness, to cry, but I didn't care. I no longer cared about anything.

Why should I?

Why should I care for someone or something when no one cares back?

Why should I care about this crap life I had?

Getting up from the stream, I started to stalk back to the school, but thought better of my heavy footsteps when the animals started flutter around scurry away. I lightened my step to an almost dance, something I would have never been able to do before my enhanced mutation. I decided to leap and grab a branch just to see how well I could hold on and get up there, it turned out it was as easy as walking. Though this should have been joyful, to be able to bounce around with such grace, but this just upset me. It was a reminder of why I was so angry before.

It was a reminder of my curse.

But as I jumped from my hold on the branch, I couldn't help noticing a few meters away the shape of the figure on the ground. It was crouched on the ground in an eerie light that didn't betray weather it was night or day. The figure was half in the shadows and I couldn't see any detail other then the basic outline.

Slowly walking forward I used my lightest step possible determined not to scare whatever creature it was before me. I was only a foot in front of it when it moved, which nearly made me jump back in fright, but I realized that it had only lifted its head up. And I saw the golden yellow eyes of a beast, but again I noticed the intelligence in them. I saw who it was and it should have made me angry to know he had followed me, but I didn't care, I saw the self hate in his eyes.

And I remembered what had happened the last time I had been selfish. It was a distant memory, but one I couldn't forget. I had been so selfish and it ended in my own self distrust. How could I have forgotten? How could I have forgotten why I had made a vow never to screw up like that again.

"Don't," I whispered to Hank, my body shaking, "Please don't make this harder then it needs to be. I have to go, I-I just have to go. Don't cause me anymore pain."

I should have never let him go, I should have seen that he was hurting just like I was, I should have known that I could have done better, been less selfish and cared for him. I could have done so many things and I made the only wrong mistake. I had made such a huge mistake, and I wasn't going to let it happen again.

*Hank*

I had let someone sneak up on me, nothing like that had happened in years. I had these enhanced abilities, and yet someone had come to stand only a foot in front of me. I felt her, for I knew who it was. No one else could move like that and no one else smelled like she did.

Looking up, I didn't even try to hide the self pity and self hate. I saw her eyes meet mine, I saw her recognize me and I saw her intake of breath. It was almost like her body shuddered, but it was such a slight shack of her body from head to toe that I could have imagined it. She had this distant look in her eye for a split second but then they refocused on my eyes and couldn't look away from her.

She finally broke the silence, "What bothers you so much?" She asked, though it seemed at first she was almost afraid to speak. She didn't seem curious, more of she was just trying to make me feel better, I could see through her eyes, though slightly hard to read, I could see what looked like pity for me, even though she didn't even know what had upset me.

She cared no matter what, and the beast in me purred at the sight of this. This made him happy, to see someone like her caring for it. Why did she care for me? Why? Me?

"Why do you ask?" I said curious as could be.

Answering with a question, she replied, "Why do you seem to hate yourself?"

She had seen the self hate I had left in my eyes, and she didn't think me selfish and stupid for having it. She seemed to want to know, so I told her.

I told her everything from start to end. Of everything about me, all my mistakes and failures. Everything.

**Again I end on a Hank note, so get ready, the next chapter will be hank spilling his guts. **

**Please Review!**

**Thanks for reading!**

**AND SO MUCH THANKS TO ALL YALL WHO ARE REVIEWING IT HELPS SO SO SO MUCH!**

**And I realize I never said this, but I own none of the x-men characters and such… so ya**


	28. Chapter 26

*Hank*

"From birth, I have known as well as my parents, that I was different. Although then it wasn't as bad as it was now. I didn't have this blue fur like I do now, or eyes, or hands, in fact I looked almost normal with my shoes on. I had heightened senses of course, but you can't really see those, unless you're looking for them," Linda had taken a seat opposite me and she was nodding her head as she listened.

"I didn't have the best of lives, I'll admit. My dad had died before I was born, and my mother didn't make up for it at all. She was a hooker to put it bluntly. And she partied, she'd go out all night doing gosh knows what and would come in the next morning either hung over or still drunk. It wasn't the ideal place to raise a kid, but I dealt with it, its not like I became like that myself. My mother at first hated me, she hated my mutation and she hated that I reminded her of my father, I think she felt guilty with me around because it was a reminder of the man she once loved. She only started to even remotely show that she liked me when it became evident that I was a genius," I even remember the say she had the meeting with one of my teachers, I was only in the first grade, but already the school could see that I was something special. They told my mother of my potential and she finally looked at me after that meeting with something other then hate or regret. Although she only seemed to care for me when she realized she could use me, but I don't think about that.

"After that she made sure that I was fed, most nights. She tried to care for me a little, she even took me shopping for new clothes," I remember that too, that was the first time I had seen her smile. She was looking for clothes for me to wear and seemed to be enjoying herself and she was making jokes about clothes that looked bad and stuff like that and she looked at me and smiled. I looked over at Linda who looked like she was thinking about something else from her dazed look.

Continuing, to try and grab her attention, "She was an okay parent after that. She was still out half the night, but usually she was hung over by the time she got home, though on Saturdays she was still drunk from the night before. I didn't really blame her for it, it was her way of copping with the loss of her husband and having to take care of her child alone," Although what I didn't tell Linda was that I didn't blame her for it now, back then every other day my mom and I were having a row and arguing about this or that. I blamed her for my crappy life and my mutation, I came to almost hate her, or hate her actions and this life she had pushed on me, but now that I look back on it she was doing the best that she knew how to do with what she was given, and I couldn't blame her for it.

I looked over at Linda who was closely watching me. "I'm sorry I'm rambling, I'll-"

"No its fine," she interrupted me, nodding for me to go on with the story.

"I didn't really have any friends. From a very young age it was evident to my teachers that I had a gift. They saw it in the way I understood things and took to things logically, because being a child genius doesn't mean you know a lot of things it means you understand things in an instant. You recall all kinds of things you may have only seen once, but you remember and understand it. At first it was a novelty, all the kids came to me and loved me, they thought I was something special and cool, but as time passes it wore away. Jealousy came into play and many other emotions," I paused remembering one of the kids I had called a friend. His name was Ben, and he thought I was so cool, until people stopped noticing him and just focused on me. He hated me for it, and I'll admit I wasn't the greatest friend back to him. We never really spoke after and that was back in first grade.

"I was a loner after that, I was bullied and taunted and I was utterly alone. It didn't help that I understood the only reason my mother even slightly liked me was because I was a genius. I wasn't naïve enough, even at the age 7 to believe that people really cared about me, they just wanted to use me. I wasn't naïve enough to believe that I would ever have a real true friend," though I didn't say out loud that I had in fact later found a true friend, and I didn't say how I had screwed things up beyond repair with that one true friend.

"I lived in a small Tennessee town, so there was only one public school to go to. I knew that I would leave that school, I knew that I would move on to bigger and better, and at the time it was an arrogant knowledge that I had, I didn't understand how blessed I was to get out of that trash pit. I just took everything I had for granted. I was self centered. I was completely socially out of tune, at least most people could fake being nice, I didn't even understand how to care or think about others then," I didn't understand how to be a friend to the one person that was friend to me.

"I-"

"Stop," Linda said, her head bent down looking at her hands. She looked like she was shaking her head back and forth trying to stop something from happening. Without another word or even a look my way she got up and sprinted away toward the mansion.

My eyes stood rooted to the spot she had just sat in, right in front of me. What had I done? How could I have screwed this up with her too? How could I be such A SCREWUP! DAMN IT! DAMN IT ALL!

And I felt him, the Beast was rising. Slowly at first but with my anger he came to greet me, and I let him take me. I had had enough of this hell hole.

*Linda*

I had to get out of there.

I can't take it.

This can't be happening.

This shouldn't be happening.

I can't do this.

Not again.

And I heard the sound. It was like a great bear roar, but I knew who it had come from. I froze where I was and looked behind me to see birds and squirrels skittering away. And that when I knew. I was in trouble.

My feet stood rooted to the spot only a second before I took off at a full out sprint toward where I knew the mansion was. My breaths came out in uneven puffs from fear and I glanced behind me every few seconds to look for him. I also became aware that it was twilight and the sun had almost fully set, in fact it would be dark by the time I made it back to the mansion. And beasts like the dark.

I stumbled and fell after looking back, but quickly got back up to my feet not even thinking just doing. I started running again and became aware that the sun had fully set. And that I had almost no light left to guide me or keep me safe. Looking back again, I made sure not to trip but when I turned back around, I saw a set of golden iridescent eyes only a few yards in front of me.

I would have screamed, in fact I should have, but when I opened my mouth nothing came out. Not words or voice came to me. I came to a complete stop only feet away from Hank.

I saw him breathing hard and he had this made twinkle to his eyes, he looked nothing like the awkward and unsocial Hank that I had just seen. He looked almost sinister, and like he was out for blood.

I opened my mouth again, and this time sound came out, but it wasn't the scream I so desperately wanted. It was words, that were almost not my own, words that I had wanted to speak, needed to speak, but hadn't voice.

"Enough, Hank. Stop it, just stop. I can't take your crap, not again. Its me, your friend, but my names Linda now, like the snake. I hate what you have become and what you did to me, but I also hate what I did to you. I can't do this again, just stop. I can't be friends, not with you or anyone else. I cant rely on someone, only to have them fail, so stop."

Hank looked at me curiously, and I felt the tingling sensation rising in me and I knew I wouldn't be able to stop it unless I got way from him. I didn't look at him as I ran past. I didn't check behind me to see if he was following, because I knew he wasn't. I didn't do anything but run and try not to think.

I found the stone track around the school and started doing laps. Anything to keep myself from thinking. But in the end I did think, but it was about something totally different. After about a half hour I started to think that I was getting tired, but it wasn't do. I realized that I wasn't pained at all by any of this running. I was tired at all, in fact I was bored if anything.

It dawned on me that I should get inside soon, as it was pitch black outside. And when I looked to the forest, not a pair of eyes looked back at me. It seems I had been alone for a while.

**So ya, I know lots of stuff going on. I know the end part with not getting tired was a bit random, but I had kinda hinted at it from all the times she had run, and how physcially capable her body was now. But I mean if you don't like it tell me. **

**I hope you've liked reading and please review, it helps me tons!**


	29. Chapter 27

*Charles*

I felt Hank's anger right before I felt the beast emerge. It boiled to the top and took over. The beast took control of Hank's body and sent in running toward the mansion, something the best usually ran away from, which was odd. However, I realized all too late that the beast wasn't just running, but chasing after something or someone. Further inquiry revealed that someone to be Linda. Who at the moment hadn't even thought to use her mutation, she was content on running for her life.

I watched horrified as the beast started going through the trees and got ahead of Linda as she tripped and fell. I listened to the beast's mangled thoughts and all I could feel coming off it was rage. He was furious and it seemed at Linda. I watched in fear as the beast dropped down only yards from where Linda would be. I felt the fear rolling off her mind. I felt her mind shudder as it saw the beast in front of her, I almost felt the scream she was trying and failing to let out. And I felt in confusion as she became almost calm and began to talk. I couldn't go deep enough into either of their minds to decipher what she was saying, but I could understand it caused her great anguish but also something close to relief that she was finally saying whatever it was. All I could read from Hank's mind was confusion, the beast didn't understand why this girl was talking to it, and it didn't seem to understand what she was saying either.

I watched in fascination as the beast let her pass. And as the beast stood on that spot for a few minutes before going deeper back into the forest. I felt as Linda's mind started running circles on the track and I felt as her mind seemed to come to a realization of some sorts as she walked inside. I didn't bother to go find her to see what had happened, she would come to me when she was well and ready and thought I needed to know the full truth.

*Hank*

I woke in what seemed to be deep in the forest. The beast hadn't brought me back anywhere near the school this time. But at least I had the knowledge there was no one to hurt out here. I tried to remember what I had done last night but only a few blurred bits came back, mostly me running through the forest, but in some it seemed I was chasing something.

It was human like it seemed, but the beast seemed to be in such a rage that it didn't really see the creature clearly.

It hit me.

Why the beast had come.

Why I had let him take over.

Why I had been so angry.

And who I had been so angry with.

It was like the floodgates had opened as all this knowledge of right before the beast had come swept through me. I got up in horror. What had the beast done? What had he done with her? Linda.

I got up in fright and ran as fast as these beast like legs could carry me. I didn't stop, not once to catch my breath. I kept running until I saw the mansion in my sight, and even then I went to a slow jog. Quickly walking up the back lawn, past the morning combat class, I came to the back patio and wrenched open the door.

Making sure no one was watching, I ran toward the dorms, where I knew she should be if she was still well and safe. At the top of the stairs I wheeled around to face the girl dorms and ran without a breath to Linda and Jubilee's. Slowly and carefully, I turned the door and looked in to see Jubilee sleeping in her bed and no Linda, but on second glace, I found her sitting at the window seat. Her back was against the wall and her eyes closed. She was almost snoring and she looked at complete peace for a second, but then I saw her eyes start to move under her eyelids. She was dreaming and from her facial expression, it was a nightmare. I wanted so badly to go in there and help her. But I knew I could do nothing. I would only wake her up, which would only end in questions as to why I was in their dorm which would lead to her asking why I had chased her last night, if she wasn't too terrified to even speak to me.

Me feet, on their own accord, propelled me forward, a step into their room, but I stopped when I heard the sound of a door closing in the room next door. Cold fear came into my stomach as I thought about being caught in the girls dorms, even if I was a teacher, it would still look bad of a man of my kind to be caught in a sleeping and dazed dorm room. Quietly turning around, I silently closed the door after looking at Linda's still sleeping form one last time.

Running down the hallway, the cold dread didn't leave the pit of my stomach until I was in my lab. Walking around, I finally settled into my usually desk at the very corner of the room.

*Linda*

I was running, running again from everything and everyone. It had started with just Hank. Hank as a young boy his tear stained face calling after me, but he morphed into my parents, who didn't even look up as I ran they just went on with their aimless work. They didn't even try to stop me, until they morphed into the Whitecoats. They chased me with their guns and needles. But they stopped when a dark looming shape came up from behind them, I ran even faster and turned to see one trip and fall and be consumed by the darkness. Turning back around I kept running only to look behind me again and see the golden iridescent eyes.

I felt the scream build up in me, and I was about to let it out right as a blinding light startled me. Looking up, I realized I had just woken from sleep, from a terrible nightmare.

Jubilee was still asleep in the bed next to mine, what had woken me was the bright sun that finally broke the horizon. It was a thing of beauty and something to admire if I cared enough, but at the moment I had more pressing matters then how pretty the sunrise was.

**Not as long or action packed as the last one, but I hope you still liked it!**

**Please review :)**


	30. Chapter 28

*Hank*

I almost forgot that I had my first class with Jane and Linda this morning. I was terrified to say the least. How would she react to me? Would she hate me? Would she pity me? Would she be terrified of me? What if she told other mutants about what I had done? What if I was kicked out of the school? I had no where to go. What would I do?

Going into the class I expected Linda to flinch at the sight of me. To remember last night and be terrified. But when I walked in she merely looked at me and turned around to face Jane.

The class went as usual, or the same as it did yesterday. Jane left after an hour and it was Linda and I left alone in the room. I had expected her to flee the room, so as not to be alone with me in a confined space.

I had to talk to her. I had decided half way through the class. This had to be resolved, I couldn't go on with her being so fake. She was putting this wall up and I had no idea what she was thinking or feeling. I hated not knowing, just as I didn't know what had exactly happened last night.

It seemed obvious I didn't hurt her, but something must have happened, the beast wouldn't just stop, he would follow and sure as hell catch her. So what happened? How had she come away unscathed?

Linda was about to walk out when I called out to her. It was almost the same as yesterday morning. She turned to face me and looked into my eyes, I looked into hers, and yet I couldn't see anything. She let no emotion bleed through and was almost a statue in feeling.

"I need to talk to you," I said carfully, trying to see if she would have any reaction at all.

"I already said what I had to say," she responded coldly, still letting no emotion play across her words or face.

"No, I talked last night and you listened, I need to know why you ran away. Why you left me there. Was my story that bad? Was it that awful?," even though that was my lives story and that would be calling my life bad and awful which I guess could be said to be true.

"I told you why I walked away," she said blankly, still letting no emotion into her voice. This almost seemed to piss me off, I mean here I was trying to make amends and she was making this harder. It seemed she had said something to me when the beast was in control, but I don't flipping remember! She was giving me no clue as to what she said. I had no idea what had happened and I had had enough! I was tired of not knowing, of having him take over. I was sick of it.

"When? When did you tell me? You just walked away! I don't remember the rest! All right! I can't remember what happened after you walked away," at the surprise flicked across her face only to be replaced by her blank cold stare.

"Then it never happened," she said softly before walking away. What did she mean? It never happened? That I was meant to forget? That she was trying to forget? That she regretted what had happened? I know I did. I was stupid and upset and let the beast take over. What had happened? What had I done? What never happened?

*Linda

"Then it never happened," I said quietly, before turning away from Hank before he saw my emotionless mask crack and fall apart. I couldn't keep this up. I couldn't do this. I wasn't this cold-hearted person. But I didn't want to relive the past. I couldn't relive the past. It would be so much more painful then being cold hearted.

I couldn't let myself break again. I couldn't go through that. Not again.

*Jubilee*

I watched from a distance. But I could see something was wrong. I was stupid nor slow, as I have said before and I will say many times after.

Something was up. Something had happened to Linda. She had this new coldness to her much like she was when she first came here. She barley spoke to me now, but I guess I spoke enough for the both of us. I talked to her about everything and nothing. I told her everything, I'm an open person to begin with, but given the situation, I became a blabber mouth. I told all about myself. About being raised by my mother, who later died. I told her all about what I had wished for as a child. I told her about how some days I miss my mother more than the world.

Sometimes when I was talking, I could see some flicker of emotion splay across her face, but she quickly stopped it from showing and simply nodded her head. I started to understand this body language she didn't seem to realize she was using. I understood what she was feeling by her body. I could tell when she seemed to almost relate to me, because she would clench her jaw as to stop her self from talking. I could see when she pitied me, which for once I was okay with a person doing, because she almost showed emotion by nodding her head, trying to stop me from seeing the pity and sorrow written in her eyes.

We almost had this unspoken language that Linda didn't even seem to know about.

And through that language I began to see a pattern. It was simple really, it shouldn't have taken me weeks to figure it out, but it did take me that long. She was always a little different when she came back from her morning classes. She still only had Jane in them, but I knew that Hank helped out as well.

She showed a little more emotion, like she was too agitated or upset to keep the cold wall up. At first I thought it might be because she had to work with other students, but I watched as she interacted with Jane and Ororo who shared the bathroom with us, and she didn't seem to mind them. In fact she had this warm glow to her eyes when she was with Ororo, like she was a caring older sister.

That only led me to believe it was because of Hank. So of course having the super awesome sleuthing skills that I possessed, I made sure it was true. I first went to one of the classes with Hank and Linda, but I saw that she must be acting differently then she usually did, mainly because of Hank's look of shock when she spoke a few words.

I then decided to just trail Linda all say in hope that she might run into Hank. This seemed to work my effectively, as she had to walk past his classroom or lab a few times each day, every time Hank seemed to want to talk to her or grab her attention, and almost every time she ignored him and kept walking or gave him a cold look. It was odd really, what did she have against Hank? Had something happened between them?

I was going to get to the bottom of this. No matter what.

**Ok so bringing Jubilee back into the story! Whoop Whoop! **

**She will play a key roll, just FYI so don't write her off just yet.**

**I hope you enjoyed that chapter!**

**Please Review, helps so much to hear your feedback!**


	31. Chapter 29

*Linda*

At first she started by just asking what was wrong. I hadn't even realized she could tell, but again it seemed I had underestimated Jubilee. She really was extremely bright. It was randomly and not at all rude, she could just tell there was something off about me, that something had upset me. I didn't think she really knew what was going on, or who was making me so agitated.

But then it got worse.

She started to question me further, almost to the point of annoyance. She would constantly ask what was up, and I would shrug my shoulders and not answer, because what was I to tell her? My past was coming back to kill me, and that I was screwed no matter what I did. That I was basically just bidding my time here until I could think of something better to do. How could I tell her that? How could you explain your whole lives story to someone, and someone that barley knew you.

I refused to tell what was wrong, that is until she hit a nerve.

It was just like any other day, really, it might sound cliché, but she was bothering me as much as usual, and I was staying silent as much as usual. Then she had to open her big mouth.

"I know it has something to do with Hank," she said hotly when I wouldn't answer her probing questions. Against my will, I flinched at that. How could she have known? I hadn't said a word to her about Hank, about anything really. How could she know?

"I know, I see the way you get so agitated after those classes with him. I know it has something to do with him, some shit went down and now your all upset," the way she said it, as though it was something I could just get over. I couldn't get over it, this was my life, this was my past, and I refused for this to be my future.

"This is not some shit that went down," I said coldly looking her full in the face, staring death glares at her eyes. I felt the tingling warm sensation rise up, and again I did nothing to stop it. I hated this, I hated everything about my life, I was through with this place with this hell.

"This is my damn life," I didn't even care about the curse that flew from my mouth, I had had enough, I was through. "I don't need you telling me some shit went down, because you know what my whole damn life is shit. All of it. ITS ALL SHIT! YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'VE GONE THROUGH, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME!"

"Then tell me," she said simply raising one eyebrow as if to dare me to go on.

*Jubilee*

I saw Linda start to glow as her words became more heated and her voice raised to a scream. I could see the scars and design on her skin start to light up as though from some internal light.

This was her mutation. Her full mutation, and it was damn well kind of scary.

But I wanted to see it, I was curios, I wanted to know. I did, I mean I didn't even know what my own room mates mutation was.

*Charles*

I felt her, I felt her mutation. And I knew there was nothing to stop her from using it this time. I felt Jubilee next to her, and I felt her curiosity, and I knew she was only egging Linda on. That there was nothing to stop her.

I heard a scream from down the hall, and quickly wheeled out of my office to see Claire crashing to her knees on the floor. Her hands clutched her eyes, and her face had a silent look of pain on it, that words couldn't express.

"CHARLES!" she screamed, knowing I would come to help her. "CHARLES STOP HER, THE PAIN, I CAN'T FEEL ANYTHING BUT HER!" she yelled, about to say something else, it ended in a scream and she crunched fully to the ground, as darkness swam into my vision and I could only feel the blinding brightness from Linda.

*Jubilee*

I watched as the scars and patterns on Linda's body got brighter and brighter until it hurt too much to look at them, and that's coming from the girl that can shoot basically mini suns.

I covered my eyes, and looked down, only to see that the ground below me was starting to crack and crumble for some reason. Her mutation was doing this, and I didn't even know how. What was it? What was her mutation doing?

A scream broke through just as the flour below me fell threw and everything went black.

*Linda*

I screamed. I couldn't hold it in, everything in me burst free, I felt this flowing sensation going through me, and I felt nothing beneath my feet, I opened my eyes to see myself floating above my floorless room that just dropped down to one of the flours below. I saw a still form on the flour, it was a girl, Jubilee.

Her arm was bent at an impossible angle, and her head was bent to the side, to far to be normal. She had fallen, because of me. I screamed harder, crying and sobbing. Falling to the ground, I crashed down and felt a dull pain in my legs, but didn't even bother to look at them.

My eyes stayed on Jubilee the whole time. I crawled over to her and touched her unbroken arm. She didn't move beneath my touch, I pushed her again, and again nothing happened.

Sobbing, I shook her and she still didn't move, her head just flopped to the side, her eyes open staring at nothing. I screamed and felt the tingling come back, I didn't hold it back, but urged it on. It could help, I knew.

I felt the glow come again, and I didn't close my eyes as I felt the energy flow through me. I didn't close my eyes as the blinding light came, I watched as Jubilee's body came in and out of focus. Finally it stopped and I could clearly see her from the light from my body.

Touching her I felt the energy in me, I saw my hand light up brighter than anything I had every seen before. I closed my eyes and screamed as everything left me, as I felt the energy flowing through my hand, agonizingly dragging through it to get to Jubilee. I opened my eyes one last time as the last of the energy left me. I saw that Jubilees eyes were blinking and focusing, and the world started to fade to gray then to black.

**Ok so you got a little more of a taste of what Linda's mutation was. I know it wasn't very descriptive, but trust me the next chapter will explain like all of it. **

**So what did you think?**

**Did you like it?**

**Please Review!**


	32. Chapter 30

*Charles*

I had never seen anything like it before. My years had been few so far, but I had come by many mutants, but I had never seen something like this before. I had seen a mutation that dealt with the energy with in a living being. And I had never seen a mutation that had brought a person back to life.

Seeing her using her full mutation, it was amazing.

I had recovered from my black out, it seemed it was quick and fast, once she stopped using her mutation I came back to, and so I wheeled to where I saw a large crowd of young mutants on the first floor. It was in one of the bedroom turned classrooms.

I watched a sobbing Linda crawl over to where Jubilee's still form was. I saw as she shook Jubilee and screamed and sobbed louder when Jubilee wouldn't move. I paid no attention to the small crowd of mutants outside the room watching with me, but I could feel the horror coming off their minds and I could feel their minds creeping to the conclusion that Linda was much more dangerous then we imagined and that she was to blame for this tragedy.

I saw the glow emitting from the scars on her body, I saw her light up bright as the sun, to the point where I had to look away, but quickly looked back at the light when I heard Linda scream in agony. I saw her body start to shake as the light faded from her and I felt the odd sensation off another mind coming into the room, and I realized I felt Jubilee's mind, as though she had never died.

I was awe struck, that was the only way to describe it, I had never believed that a mutation could bring someone back to life, and had never even seen a mutation that seemed to use a living beings life force.

Linda had fallen over Jubilee, it seemed she had passed out from all the energy she had given Jubilee to live. The other mutants stayed back, but I watched as Hank rushed forward to help. He picked Linda's still form off of Jubilee and gave Jubilee a hand up.

He gave me a cautious look before caring Linda to the infirmary and I had a since of déjà vu, from the first time I had seen Linda's passed out form. It pained me that I couldn't help her, that in my handicapped form I was no longer of much use to most, sure I could teach classes, but I couldn't really help out in combat, other then assessing a students mutation.

I wheeled after Hank, giving all the students a look that clearly said get back to class, I know it might have been rude of me, but I didn't need them nosing into this, I had to find out what had first happened before I could deal with the rumors that were sure to be flying very soon.

*Hank*

Looking down at Linda in my arms, I felt like I had to protect her, like I was her keeper, her protector, even though she had just demonstrated that she needed no protector. She had just shown what the full extent to her mutation was, and it oddly reminded me of someone else's mutation, a girl I had once knew.

Linda's seemed far more powerful, though. I quickly walked to the labs, aware that Charles was wheeling behind me, and that we had much to discuss about this girl and her powerful mutation.

Dropping her off on one of the unused beds, I turned to Charles and he shut the door behind me and wheeled around to face me. His face, portraying no emotion, and looking like a solid rock, cracked apart and showed the worry and fear that he and I both felt.

He opened his mouth, and looked at Linda then to me, aguish clear in his voice, "What are we to do?"

*Linda*

I heard them talking about me. It was to be expected. But what I didn't expect was the hunger and tiredness that seemed to title wave over me. I wanted to groan in pain, but knew it would take to much energy to do so. I just wanted peace and quiet to I could suffer and die alone.

"Charles, I-, its just extraordinary. I mean, I saw something that looks kind of like this before in another mutant, but I don't think their mutation uses the energy of a living being like that. I believe what happened was she gave almost all of her life force to save Jubilee, because Jubilee had none. I didn't know a mutation could do something like that."

"Hank hold on," Charles said softly.

I felt something warm touch my shoulder and tried to open my eyes, but found it took too much effort.

"Hank," Charles voice struck into the silence and I wanted to flinch, but felt I couldn't. "Got get an IV drip of water, she's dehydrated and in utter pain and exhaustion.

I heard the soft pad of bare feet walking on the floor and click click of the claws on Hank's feet.

"Its going to be fine, Linda, don't try to move. We're going to take care of you, don't worry," I heard Charles murmur softly. And it made me remember, it was when Hank had been talking to me when we were children.

_"Well that what parents are suppose to do. They are suppose to take care of you. And she isn't. My mother is the worst parent ever, she can't anything worth crap," he had said hotly after his mom had come home drunk and shoeless. _

_We were sitting in my back yard, looking up at the big tree, my legs stretched out in front of me. Hank had said all this stuff about his mother, but at least she could sometimes remember who he was. She did take care of him, not the best, but she still did. No one took care of me, I took care of everyone and everything around me. _

A voice broke into my memory, it stabbed through all that I was thinking.

"Hank! Something's happened to her, get over here now," I tried opening my eyes again, but still couldn't.

I felt something warm rolling down my face and cheeks, and realized I had been crying, I didn't have the energy to open my eyes, but I could cry. What kind of crap was this? I couldn't believe I could almost get angry over this, but still not move any part of my body.

I felt a sharp prickle on the inside of the elbow, and remembered Charles saying something about an IV. I couldn't even scrunch my face up in pain about this, what was happening to me? What was wrong?

I remembered trying to save Jubilee. How I had hurt her, how I had-

Oh god, I'm a monster. I had killed someone. Again.

I can't do this, not again.

And I couldn't even do anything. I couldn't even be that disgusted with myself, because I was so damn tired and groggy.

**Ya ok… so what you think?**

**Please please review, it helps so so so much!**


	33. Chapter 31

SO SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT!

*Linda*

I can't stay.

I had decided it long ago in my groggy state. I couldn't stay, and hurt someone else. This couldn't be like the Whitecoats. I couldn't kill these people. All these mutants. All living here, thinking they were safe, from the world and every evil that came with it. I couldn't ruin that for them.

I can't stay here, but I don't really want to say good bye.

As much as I hate to admit it, I had let this place come to be almost like a home to me. I had liked the long hours of Jubilee telling me everything there was to know about her. I had liked having the class with Jane and a few other young mutants that had joined. I had liked being taken care of a little bit. I had liked not having to pay for everything on my own. I had liked being almost safe. I had liked it all, really. And the things I hadn't liked, I had learned to live with.

But I had to go.

This life, I couldn't live it, not any longer. I couldn't stay in the fear of hurting these people that I had befriended. I couldn't risk it, I wasn't going to be that selfish, not this time.

*Charles*

I knew Linda had made the decision to go. Her mind may have been a mess, but I could tell that she was degusted with herself, that she hated the very person she was. I knew I couldn't stop her, she was determined, but she was a danger no matter where she went, it was, that it seemed she simply didn't want to be a danger to the people she had come to love and care for.

She stayed in the infirmary, and when people went to visit she pretended to be asleep, especially when it was Jubilee.

Jubilee had recovered nicely, considering she had died, after Hank helped her up, she went about like nothing had happened to her, at first she didn't even know what had happened. It was hard telling her, to say the least, how did you explain to a person that they had died? And at the hand of a friend. She had a much different reaction then I would have thought.

_"What do you mean I died, Professor? I'm alive and well!" _

_"Well, its that Linda's mutation, it well, it crumbled the floor around you and you fell to the first floor, you broke your arm and hit your head, hard enough to kill you. Linda didn't know what she was doing-"_

_"Yes, I know, I provoked her. I wanted to see what her mutation was, sorry 'bout that, but how did I come, you know, back to life?" She blew it off, just like that, that her roommate had killed her, it was amazing. Jubilee was so much more then most thought. _

_"You must first understand how her mutation works. She uses a living beings energy for her mutation, her own to be specific, she seems to have an abundance of it, much more then the average person. She uses it and manipulates it, that's what the glowing light in her was, it was her life's energy, she can use at however she pleases, for instance like she did on you, she can transfer it over to another being. But in this case, since you were dead, she had to use almost all of the energy stored within herself, and that almost killed her." _

_"So you're telling me, Linda almost killed herself in order to save me?" Something in jubilee seemed to click and she looked over to Linda's still form was awe and something else in her eyes, she loved Linda, she loved her as much as a best friend could, and Jubilee understood what Linda did for her. _

_"Thank you for telling me, Professor."_

After that conversation, Jubilee had gone to Linda's room after every class she had, and spent most of her day in the infirmary. I mentally looked in sometimes, but every time Linda would pretend to be asleep, and after a while I think Jubilee began to catch on.

*Jubilee*

I knew that Linda couldn't sleep all that time, it was simply logic. I spent almost all my day in the infirmary, and Linda was never awake. She didn't move, and if I didn't know any better I would have thought she was dead, but she was just being stupid and didn't want to talk to me, so again it seemed, I did all the talking.

At first I thanked her, I thanked her for saving me. But the more I thought about it, the more that it occurred to me that Linda wouldn't accept my thanks unless she understood that I forgave her for killing me. It sounds to weird, saying that, that I was dead, that she killed me, and yet I can still live to say it.

So that what I told her, I told her how odd it felt to say that I had been dead, that I had died. I told her I understood that she had little control and would have stopped herself if she could. I told her how I forgive her, and how there really was nothing to forgive her over. I told her that we needed to talk sometime. I talked to her for hours, like before, and she laid there, and I knew she heard every word I said, I knew she was listening to me.

So, I of course, decided I needed to take this to a whole new level. It was maybe two weeks after I had died, still pretty weird to say…

"Linda, I know you aren't asleep," I was going to ease into this nicely and if she wouldn't respond then I would go forward with a little more force, of course nicely, kind of.

"Linda! You need to get over this and stop fake sleeping!" A little more harshness entered my words, and my voice raised a slight bit.

No response. Damn.

Getting up from the chair next to her bed, I put my hands on Linda's shoulders and looked into her closed eyes, only inches away from her face.

"Linda, you better be listening loud and clear, because I will only saw this one more time. You need to get the hell over it and move on. I forgave you, even though there was nothing to be forgiven over, so stop being an idiot," I said gruffly aware that some spit had left my mouth in the process and landed on Linda's eyelid.

She flinched, I mean who wouldn't? Some wet liquid had just landed on you're eyelid. It seemed to take her a minute before she realized her cover had been blown. Lifting her hand, she whipped the spit from her eyelid, and opened her eyes to look into mine. At first they spoke worlds. So much emotion was bottles up in them, but after a second the glazed over. She looked at me, but she wouldn't let me look at her. She put up her wall again, that stupid wall.

"Linda," I said harshly, letting anger show all over my face. She was not doing this crap for me not again.

"Jubilation Lee," she whispered softly, taking me back by using my first name, "You have been more of a friend then anyone else has been to me, you have done more then anyone else. I'm sorry that I can't be anywhere close to that for you. I'm sorry, but I must leave." She closed her eyes and I saw a tear slip down her face. The mask that was always her face crumbled, and it showed the sorrow within her.

"You listen to me, Linda. You are not going anywhere, you are staying here. That's what this place is for, to help us learn how to control our mutations." I was pissed, she was not going to leave me. Who did she think she was? I had poured everything I was to this girl, and she was just going to leave!

"No, Jubilee. Please listen to me, I only ask that you listen and try to understand. I am a danger to everyone here. My mutation is so far different and unexplained, there is nothing here that can help me. I've given this such great thought, and I know that I must leave. I feel it in my heart, no matter how much it will hurt to leave everything here, but please try to understand, please don't make this harder," and I saw in her eyes, she had let the wall down and I saw all that sorrow and self hate, and I wanted anything to stop it, to make Linda understand that there was nothing to hate about her, but I also understood. She had to do this on her own, she had to figure this out. And she needed my support, she needed my permission to go, the pleading look in her eyes told me everything. That she had come to love and care for so much here, but she had to go.

I didn't want to let her go, but if she thought she had to go, who was I to stop her?

I looked into Linda's eyes, so filled with emotion, and I smiled.

"I don't want you to go, Linda," I began, and held up my hand when Linda tried to interrupt me, "But I understand that you must go, but we must keep in touch. You must write to, and I will write to you. Do you understand?" I would not just let this friendship end, not like this.

Tears in her eyes, she nodded her head, smiling, "Yes."

**Ok..**

**What did you think?**

**I am sad to say that this fanfic is coming to an end, but I will have a sequel, no telling when it will be, but I will say that it will consist of the letter Linda and Jubilee send eachother, and just so you know they are just friends, no slash...**

**Ya so I hope you liked it and please review!**

**ANNNNDDD I have started a page on facebook for Dobby, and it would be really cool if yall liked it, im going to be updating it often with funny pictures and memorable quotes, so it would be awesome if you did that! Here's the link: . **


	34. Chapter 32

*Charles*

I had expected it since Linda had left. Really I was surprised it took this long, but Charles was a good man and wouldn't abandon us so soon.

He had been almost heartbroken. Although it seemed he scarcely knew Linda, but he did seem to feel protective over her, he wanted to prove himself, but not only to her but to everyone else. He felt he needed to.

I was pleasantly surprised when Alex tried talking Hank into staying. They had not always gotten along, but it seems that things have changed for the better, although its sad it took such circumstances like this to bring them together.

Jubilee had taken Linda leaving, better then I had expected. I knew they had discussed the thought of Linda leaving, but I was a little curious as to what Linda said to Jubilee to make her understand. As much as Jubilee seemed to accept Linda's departure, she just couldn't stand the thought of Hank leaving, and she often voiced it.

"You are just being stupid!" She yelled at Hank one day as he was packing up his belongings, "You are being selfish and trying to run from everything! I mean really? MAN UP!" I could hear it from down the hallway, but myself along with a few other teachers tactfully acted as though we couldn't hear a thing.

"Linda wouldn't have wanted this to happen! She didn't leave so you could have a pity party! Its been three months, really? No other thought as to why you SHOULD stay?"

*Hank*

"Jubilee, please clam down. Please you don't understand. Its-"

"This is not all about you! Linda hated what she did to you, and you don't even remember who she was! You didn't remember, and I think deep down it kind of killed her inside," Jubilee's eyes fogged over and if I didn't know any better I would say she was about to cry, except for the fact that Jubilee just didn't cry.

"You didn't remember," She chocked out before reaching into her pocket and handing me a folded paper. She shoved it into my hands before, running out the door, I heard her footfalls as she made it down the hallway back to the dorms.

I had no idea what jubilee was talking about. I didn't remember what? Looking down at the small letter, I carefully broke the seal to look at a swift and neat had written note.

_Hank,_

_If you are reading this, then you are probably about to do something stupid and make a terrible decision, or Jubilee wouldn't have given this to you. I didn't recognize you at first, I will admit, I didn't realize who you were until you started telling me about you're past when we were in the forest. That was why I ran away, I told you but I realize you didn't hear or understand when you were the beast took over. _

_Jubilee told me, she told me about how the beast would take over. I want you to know that I didn't leave that night because I thought you were so screwed up or something, I left because I couldn't do it. I left because I was running from my past. Which is you. _

_My given name isn't Linda, I took the name Linda after the Whitecoats tainted me, for my old name was Serena, which means pure. I was anything but pure after the Whitecoats changed me. This is awful to put in a letter, I hate that I can't say this to you in person, I hate that I'm such a coward, but you must know that we've met before. _

_I know you blame yourself for what happened, I saw it in your eyes the day you left. I watched you every day after the fight and I never forgot how much I had messed up. _

_I didn't write you this to tell you my life's story, to explain the reasoning for my actions, I wrote you this to tell you that you never failed at the friendship we had. I never really let you in, and so you could never really be a friend. Don't hate yourself for my choices, and don't blame yourself. _

_Please understand that I chose to leave for my own reasoning and they had little to do with you. I chose to leave not to run from my past, but to save my future. My deepest regrets sill lie with you and the decisions I have made in the past, but know that you must make the most of this life you were given. _

_One day we may meet again, _

_Linda _

I felt the floor under my knees and realized I had slumped to a kneel. This couldn't be true. This couldn't be happening. The emotional part of my brain, the part that would act my age, that part denied every bit of that letter. It couldn't be true. None of it could be true. She couldn't be her, Linda couldn't be her.

But the mutated part of my brain, the logical part, the more enhanced part with the high IQ, it added up all the pieces. How similar the two's mutations were. How if you looked past Linda's red skin you could almost see her. That part of my brain got it, it accepted the facts and moved on, because it clicked, it all made sense.

And for once I didn't want to listen to the logical part of me. I didn't want to listen to my mutation, my enhanced brain that was telling me that this was all true. I just wanted things to be simple, to be black and white. I just wanted things to be easy and as they should, I didn't want this.

I didn't want the reminder.

I didn't want to think of it at all.

I didn't want it.

I didn't want my past.

**Ok so short chapter, I know, but only one more. **

**So what I'm going to do is write another one as a sequel and all its going to be is letter between Jubilee and Linda. Some of yall might not like that, but whatever. **

**So please stay tuned!**

**PLEASE VISITE: **** . **

**I created it and love it, and will update it often!**


	35. Chapter 33

*Charles*

As much as Hank had tried to hid it, I knew what the letter said. I knew the reasons for his stay. I knew that he would have left had Linda not written that letter, and I knew that Hank would probably never really know the real connection between the two had Linda not written that letter.

She was brighter then I originally thought, she was also more caring. It was awful of me to judge her so harshly, but I had no real clue as to what her mind held other then chaos. She knew and understood what would happen if she left, she wasn't simply guessing at it, and she did something with this knowledge, which was more then most would have done.

She was different then anyone really thought of her. Ororo, the girl that Linda so fiercely loved, didn't even know her that well. Ororo took it hard though, often she was seen with tears in her eyes and it came as almost a surprise to me when Hank was seen comforting her. They grew closer and closer, brought together by their love for Linda, and it seemed that Hank was slowly starting to settle back into the mansion. Slowly started to accept this was the place for him and that he should be mutant and proud.

He opened up more and more every day, but still moments passed when I knew his brain was going a million miles a second and thinking about everything and nothing about Linda and him. He was still lost, not as much as before, but still trying to find himself, still trying to accept himself.

It was happy to watch, though. He seemed to forget half of the hardships he'd been through by thinking about Linda and comforting Ororo. He forgot all the people he had lost, all the people that had left him. It was good to see a friend in such a happy place. Even if it seemed he didn't have much to be happy about.

I knew life would never be as it once was before Linda. Not only for Hank and Ororo, but for many around them, for me even. I knew I would never think of mutations as the same, because really how could I? She was the most powerful mutant I had ever seen. I kept my eye on her, always watching where she was going, making sure nothing strange was going on, but she seemed fine.

She seemed to have control. That or she bottled it all up waiting to throw it all out in one stage, but there seemed to be nothing to bottle up, she was picking random places with no connection to her, places that wouldn't cause her to need her mutation or cause or to accidently use it.

She was doing her best, and I hoped for her sake as long as those around her that she would make it.

**Ok yes, so the end. I know kind of disappointing. Mainly because I didn't have much else to say. I wanted yall to know that Linda isn't this awful person and that deep down she really cares. **

**So the sequel will not be all letters between Linda and Jubilee, there will be some scenes and things but it will mainly be centered around Jubilee and her point of view. It will basically be the years later and how everyone is doing and coping. **

**I won't tell you everything, but I will tell you that there will be a wedding, maybe even two, and that Claire will come back into this. **

**And for those of you that forgot Claire is the girl from the beginning that can see people using their mutations, she's the lady that no one really likes and she and Charles might have thin going for them too!**

**Ok so I really hope you've liked this!**

**PLEASE VISITE: **** . **

**I created it and love it, and will update it often!**


	36. Author's Note

Authors Note!

Ok so I'm going to do some major revising to this!

I'm not changing the story line or anything, but I will be editing it and condensing it into less chapters so its easier to read! SO PLEASE if you have read this and you have any suggestions or constructive criticism please let me know!

ALSO!

A HUGE THANKS TO those who favorited or followed this story, that would be:

(Favorite)** Akuish, childofdragons1, cocalovu, danoc, FredsForeverFanGirl, Sephira Vanya Estelwen, Ulquiorra-Schiffer-4 **

(Follow) **Akuish, Avangeline Spring, Chishio chuudoku, cocalovu, danoc, marrieh, rozisa, Tala-Lady-Of-Wolves**

YALL ARE ALL SO AWESOME!

And thank you so much:

**Cocalovu**- That review made me feel so good, I didn't even know if anyone would like my idea or story and I'm glad you liked it so much! I'm glad you're still reading and following!

**Cottonheadedniggymuggins**- Thanks for the encouragement! I love your name, best Christmas movie ever!

**Akuish**- THANK YOU! That review came at a good time and I needed it! I'm glad you're still reading and following!

**Kishe**- Thanks for that little bit of encouragement, it went a long way!

**Shikaku Ryoko**- Thanks for that! I'm glad you told me that about the Linda not resembling herself, I tried to shift things a little after that, and I probably wouldn't have done anything to make it better if it weren't for you!

**Sephira Vanya Estelwen**- Thanks, I know I stopped updating after you posted that for a bit, and I was just feeling down about the story but after rereading that lil review you wrote, it encouraged me to go on, so thanks!

**Rozisa**- Thanks for not throwing rocks at me! I'm super glad you liked it! Thanks for spending time to review!

SO PLEASE! Review with absolutely anything you think needs to be changed or improved in the story it would help so much!


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